


A Second Chance (to Get it All Wrong)

by duckatrice



Category: The Wicked Years Series - Gregory Maguire, Wicked - All Media Types, Wicked - Schwartz/Holzman
Genre: F/F, Gen, Slow Burn, a generous sprinkling of angst, canon takes a sharp left turn, friends to it's complicated to enemies to friends to lovers, musical meets books meets my FEELINGS, suddenly sapphic, wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-05-14
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:42:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 34,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22580062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duckatrice/pseuds/duckatrice
Summary: What if, when Elphaba had asked Glinda to come with her... she said yes? Sometimes, all we need is a second chance to pursue our true happiness--but we often learn that some things seem to be written in stone, and, all too often, we wind up making the same mistakes we did the first time around.LOOK. They did my girls wrong in the play AND in the books, and this fic sets out to fix...? it. But also, they must suffer. Because that's the narrative rule. And I mean, I like Fiyero okay, but why did he have to become like the hinge of this story??? No. The duck says differently.
Relationships: Elphaba Thropp/Galinda Upland
Comments: 40
Kudos: 65





	1. Something Old, Something New

**Author's Note:**

> Why yes, I do plan to write F/F fics until I die! It's my wheelhouse!
> 
> Anyway--welcome to my Wicked fic! I've been meaning to write this for a long time and am so excited to finally begin sharing it with you! This fic will update every Wicked Wednesday until it's finished (and it's set to be a long one, so prepare for at least, uhhhh... somewhere around 30 weeks of content), and I welcome any and all feedback you have! Kudos are great, comments make my day (even if they're just one word "YES" or "NO" or "HDU" comments).
> 
> If you wanna see what else I get up to in between bouts of fic updates, check me out or say hey at duckscrabble.tumblr.com! I definitely do not bite--I only quack.
> 
> Without further ado, here's the fic! Hope you enjoy, and I look forward to hearing from you!  
> Happy 2020!
> 
> ~duckatrice~

Glinda wasn’t quite sure when it had all gone wrong.

They had spent a lovely day in the Emerald City—the kind of day most people only dream of. They had seen all the sights they could possibly pack into their few hours before the most important audience of their lives. They had gotten front-row seats to Wiz-o-Mania, for crying out loud! The Emerald City was beautiful; everything glistened green, aside from the streets that had been paved with gold, and the people were all so incredibly fabulous in their high fashion that one never saw outside of the glimmering metropolis. She and Elphaba had even become best friends, officially.

The two of them had laughed and smiled for near the entire day—so why, now, were the two of them spitting venom at one another, locked away into a tiny utility closet with guards swarming all around, after having first created and then haphazardly freed a wild horde of mutated monkeys with wings? She could still hear the screeching—it made her skin crawl.

“I hope you’re happy,” Glinda hissed, flinging her arm in a fierce gesture toward the door. “I hope you’re happy now! I hope you’re happy how you’ve hurt your cause forever—I hope you think you’re clever!”

“I hope you’re happy,” Elphaba replied, her face twisting into an animal sneer. “I hope you’re happy, too! I hope you’re proud that you would grovel in submission, to feed your own ambition!”

It was strangely poetic, when she stopped to think about it. Poetic and idiotic, this whole cursed situation. Someone could write a song about it. The two of them glared at one another for several long moments, and then Glinda sighed, throwing her arms up in the air and approaching her best friend.

“Elphie, please. Listen to me. Just—say you’re sorry,” she said, though her own argument sounded feeble and hollow in her own ears. “You can still be with the Wizard. You can still do all those things you so desperately want to do—everything you’ve been working for, everything you’ve ever wanted. You just… I’m sure the Wizard is reasonable. Right?”

Elphaba shook her head, her face slowly sinking into a frown.

“Glinda, I can’t. He’s wrong. I can’t just forget about this, pretend like everything’s okay,” she said, folding her arms across her chest. “You saw what just happened. I’ve been afraid for too long. I’ve been playing nice for too damned long. I can’t keep doing it anymore. If the Wizard can’t help—won’t help—the Animals, then… then I’m just going to have to do it myself.”

Glinda stared at her like she’d grown a second green head. Her old argument bubbled up in the back of her brain, from the time before they were friends: they’re just a bunch of Animals, Elphie. Let it go. But something stopped the words from reaching her lips—a goat-shaped wound on her heart, paired with a missing syllable once considered all-important. Still, as much as she sympathized, she just couldn’t understand. Elphaba was throwing everything away. If she would only apologize, she could... Well, maybe she could change things from the inside out. Sometimes, one just had to play by the rules long enough to get the power to break them.

But Elphaba didn’t understand any of that. How could she? People had, understandably, never been her strongest suit.

“Glinda, come with me. Think of what we could do _together_.”

She blinked, shaking herself from her reverie as Elphaba took one step closer, her hand outstretched. Her dear green companion was now distinctly within her own personal bubble, and Glinda found that her mind suddenly ground to a halt at the way Elphaba looked at her from across the handful of inches between them.

“I—what?”

“Together, we’re unlimited. We’d be the greatest team there’s ever been—if we just work together,” Elphaba said, and Glinda felt her heart twist at the sudden vehemence of the final word.

And she felt… she suddenly felt like she had been here before.

The world around her seemed to slow down, even as her heart raced inside her chest. There she stood, paralyzed in the face of the biggest choice of her (admittedly somewhat pathetic) lifetime—and she could have sworn she heard the ticking of a massive clock somewhere in the back of her mind. The Time Dragon stretched out its great iron wings in her mind's eye, swinging its head to look at her with one brilliant emerald eye. This felt like… like a rare opportunity, a second chance that most people never got.

But what had she done before? What was the choice she had made that required some sort of magical do-over?

If she went with Elphaba, she would lose everything: her social status, her friends, her family name, her extremely plush bed, her opportunities for advancement. Fiyero. The perfect life, built for the perfectly ambitious little doll her parents had so carefully constructed for the last twenty years or so.

If she stayed behind, she would lose Elphie. Her… best friend.

There was something that flickered in the depths of Elphaba’s dark eyes as Glinda simply stared, lost in the shocked recesses of her whirlwind thoughts. It almost looked like—desperation, maybe. Or passion—for her cause, of course. Or…

Elphaba’s outstretched hand slowly sank, her hopeful half-smile sinking right along with it.

“Or… not. Forget it,” she muttered, turning away sharply. “Forget it, it was stupid of me to ask.”

Glinda’s heart fluttered to life in a way she hadn’t felt since she was a little girl, and she immediately stepped forward to grab Elphaba’s arm.

“Wait—Elphie, wait.”

Elphaba didn’t look at her, standing tall and rigid like she’d replaced her spine with wrought iron. Even for all of that, though… it felt like she was shaking. Was she afraid?

“No. Don’t. You’ve got… so many things you wanted to do, back at Shiz. Back home. Your parents, your family—”

“And what about you?” Glinda retorted, her voice coming out sharper than she’d meant it to. “You’re just going to run away and abandon everything you’ve been working so hard for? All your friends—”

“What friends?” Elphaba said, scoffing a laugh as she turned to face Glinda with raised brows. “Fiyero? Boq? Neither of them wants me around, most of the time. I’m too much for them—too much for everyone. Except you.”

Glinda blinked again, another little circuit misfiring in her brain.

“Well—but what about Nessa?”

Elphaba’s face contorted into a grimace, and she looked away.

“Nessa’s better off without me. Look… forget about it, Glinda,” she said, only to jump when they heard the sound of heavy footsteps racing toward them. “Oh—damn it. I have to go.”

“Where in Oz do you think you’re going? There’s nowhere to go _from_!”

Glinda watched as Elphaba’s keen eyes searched all over before resting first on a large window set into the wall and then on a broomstick that lay abandoned and dusty in the corner. Without a word, Elphaba rushed up to grab the broom, then set it on the floor and pulled out the massive tome she had used only minutes ago to change those monkeys into flying monstrosities.

“Oh—no, Elphie, you can’t be serious,” Glinda said, her voice raising to a high, shrill squeak.

Too late. Elphaba was already chanting in that incomprehensible language, waving her hands back and forth over the broom in a slow, fluid pattern that made Glinda's eyes water. Soon, the broom floated up just a few inches off the ground, and Elphaba snatched it up victoriously before looking back at Glinda.

“…I hope you’re happy,” Elphaba murmured, her voice thick.

Again, Glinda heard the heavy ticking of the clock as fists hammered the door in slow-motion. Elphaba was reaching toward her again, her delicate green fingers outstretched, but all Glinda could see was the liquid warmth in Elphaba’s dark eyes. No one had ever looked at her like that before, not even Fiyero. It made her heart do flip-flops, her stomach leaping up into her throat as her entire body seemed to flush hot and cold at the same time.

Another heavy pounding sounded from the door—this time, of booted feet trying desperately to break the lock. It wouldn’t take them long. She had to choose. Now.

“Elphaba,” Glinda said, her voice breathless as Elphie’s fingers just grazed her shoulder, bringing the whole world back up to speed. She only hoped she was making the right choice. “I’m going.”

“It’s okay—wait, what?”

“I’m going! So, let’s go! Hurry!”

Now Elphaba stood stunned, rooted to the spot as her fingers held the broomstick in a white-knuckled grip. Her mouth hung slightly slack, and those deep dark eyes simply stared back at her.

“Elphie! Now is not the time,” Glinda hissed, closing the distance between them and clutching at the broom. “Whatever you’re doing, do it! Now!”

Blinking herself from her stupor, Elphaba nodded thickly, her eyes wide, and cleared her throat.

“Right! Hold on!”

Glinda squeezed her eyes shut, curling one arm tightly around Elphaba as her hand squeezed the wood of the broom nearly hard enough to splinter it—and, suddenly, the world below them gave way just as the door swung in, broken off its hinges. There was a rush of air, a strong arm wrapped around her that dragged her into place on the broom, and then the strange sensation of falling…

Or flying.

Elphaba laughed from behind her—a high, wild cackle that Glinda had never heard before.

“Glinda! Look! We’re defying gravity!”

Hesitantly, she cracked her eye open, only to gasp when she saw all the Emerald City sprawled out beneath them, buildings whipping by as people paused to point up at the pair of them speeding away through the clear sapphire sky. It was beautiful. Her lips twisted into a broad smile of their own accord, and she found herself laughing with Elphaba as the broom carried them far away from the flabbergasted populace below.

“Where are we going?” She shouted over the wind, turning her head as much as she dared to try and get a better look at Elphaba over her shoulder.

“I hadn’t thought that far ahead,” Elphaba admitted, at least having the good sense to look sheepish. “We’ll figure it out!”

Glinda rolled her eyes and shook her head, though she couldn’t remove the smile that remained plastered firmly in place despite the wind. For the moment, everything was all right—in fact, today had been the most exciting and wonderful day of her life. Still, she wasn’t looking forward to writing the letter to her parents explaining what had happened. She could only imagine the look on dear Mumsy’s face—and the ear-splitting shriek that was sure to follow afterward.

Somewhere, though Glinda could not say quite where, the deep, heavy bells of a clocktower began to toll. She closed her eyes again, her smile finally fading. Everything felt new and strange, now; Elphaba was warm and solid behind her, one surprisingly strong arm wrapped around her to hold her on the broomstick, and Glinda felt her heart racing—from adrenaline or from fear, she couldn’t quite say.

She could only hope that she had made the right choice this time.


	2. Roughin' It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The girls manage to escape, but now they need to find a place to stay and come up with a plan of action.  
> Glinda is Not Enthused about Elphaba's life choices, and learns a little bit about magic.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Glinda turned to look at Elphaba, her face twisting as she brought her hands up to rest on her hips. The two of them had landed somewhere deep in Munchkinland after their wild and quite literal flight from the Emerald City, and now stood outside a rickety old barn that had clearly seen better days. Its roof slumped inward, walls akimbo like the legs of an old man accustomed to riding a horse for many hours a day, and its huge wooden doors hung on their hinges like grumpy, slouching teenagers. Altogether, it looked unwelcoming, uninviting, and distinctly uninhabitable.

Elphaba only shrugged at her, and Glinda glared in response.

“We’ll make do. At least no one will come looking for us here; this place has been abandoned since I was a little girl, and probably a dozen years or so before that,” Elphaba said, striding over to carefully pry open one of the stubborn doors. Apparently, what she found inside met with her satisfaction; she gave a brisk nod, then turned to face Glinda once more.

“It’s clean and dry inside. Spacious enough, too.”

Glinda returned her look of hopeful optimism with a flat, blank stare.

“Elphie. I have never, in my _life_ , slept in a barn.”

“Life is full of firsts.”

“I don’t think you quite understand,” Glinda said, taking a deep breath to steel her patience as she forced a tight, questionably polite smile onto her face. “I am _not_ sleeping in a rickety old _barn_!”

Her voice rose about four octaves and twenty decibels on the last word, and she winced at herself.

Elphaba stared back, brow slowly furrowing.

“Where would you like to stay? A five-star hotel for runaway criminals?”

“…There’s no need for sass,” Glinda muttered, folding her arms over her chest.

“Maybe you’d like to go back to Shiz? That’d turn out great. ‘Hey, everyone! Your beloved Galinda has returned from her brief stint as a rebel against the Wizard! Don’t turn me in!’”

“Look, just because _you’re_ used to squalor doesn’t mean that I—”

“Squalor?” Elphaba barked, her knuckles turning white as she gripped the broomstick tighter. “ _I’m_ used to _squalor_? I am a child of the Eminent Thropp! Just because Munchkinland isn’t as hoity-toity as Gillikin—”

“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare start with me,” Glinda shouted, stepping closer to jab a finger right into Elphaba’s breastbone.

“Me? _You’re_ the one who started all this! What did you think was going to happen?”

“I don’t know! I just had to make a choice, and I made one!”

The two of them glared at one another for a long moment before Elphaba finally slid her dark eyes away, shoulders slumping.

“…I told you that you didn’t have to come,” she said, all the force and fire suddenly extinguished and replaced by a bone-deep weariness.

Glinda grimaced, letting her accusatory finger drop as she let out a sharp sigh.

“No, I know—I’m sorry, Elphie. I just… I guess I just didn’t realize how _final_ it was going to be,” she said, shrugging slightly as she tried to push the sudden wave of horrible thoughts out of her mind. “Maybe we can find a… a blanket, or something. Make this place nice and… homey.”

Elphaba smirked.

“Leave it to you to think of interior decorating before anything practical.”

“What? Decoration is _essential._ Even if we are criminals, we’re not _animals_ ,” Glinda scoffed, only to blink when Elphaba flinched at the term. “…Oh. I didn’t mean—”

“I know. Let’s… let’s just get inside,” Elphaba muttered, slipping in through the crack in the doors she’d managed.

Glinda stood outside for just a moment longer, then let out a long, deep sigh and carefully squirmed her way through the same narrow entrance that her hips did not quite agree with. Thankfully, the barn really _was_ warm and dry inside, though everything was permeated by a vague smell of damp earth and something almost like sweat. There was no furniture, of course, save for some half-rotted crates and piles of hay that looked as if they had forgotten how, exactly, to be hay. The only light came from the narrow cracks in the slats of the roof and wooden walls, and Glinda had to squint to see Elphaba’s tall, dark form moving swiftly up an incredibly unstable-looking ladder to the hayloft overhead.

“Elphie,” she hissed, half-whispering as if afraid to break the silence, “be careful! You’ll get a splinter, or break a leg, or—something!”

Elphaba said nothing in response. Glinda could see her lanky shadow prowling around, pushing piles of hay this way and that to clear a space. After a moment, Glinda moved closer to the ladder—though she didn’t dare climb it—and tilted her head to try and get a better look.

“Couldn’t you clean all this up with magic? Or give us a light?”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Elphaba replied, and Glinda could practically feel the way the other girl was rolling her eyes up there in the dark.

“Well, what’s the point in having magic if you can’t do anything useful with it?” Glinda muttered, turning away and digging in her little bag to find her precious magic wand. If Elphaba couldn’t (or wouldn’t) fix everything with her own weird powers, then clearly it was up to Glinda to save the day yet again.

“Mmmmmmagic,” she hummed, giving her wand a little flick and flourish.

A tiny spark flew from the end of it, but that was all.

“Didn’t you learn anything from Madame Morrible?” Elphaba asked from somewhere overhead. Glinda looked up to see her leaning over the edge of the hayloft, laying on her stomach and smiling like a particularly amused Cat.

“I learned… some,” Glinda said, feeling heat rise to her cheeks. She cleared her throat, adjusted her stance a little bit—placing her feet _just_ so and setting her spine into perfect alignment—and then took a deep breath and tried again.

Nothing happened.

Elphaba shook her head when Glinda looked up at her, though her smile now seemed a little softer in the dim afternoon light.

“You’re trying too hard. Just… relax. Loosen your shoulders. Magic is a feeling, not a demonstration,” she said, resting her chin on her folded arms as she looked down at Glinda. “Even before I started learning Sorcery, I could make things happen just by feeling it—by willing it to happen.”

“Yeah, well, you’re some kind of magical prodigy or something,” Glinda said, her voice coming out in a rather undignified whine as her shoulders slouched. “I’ve never been able to do anything but play fairy princess and hit people with my wand.”

Elphaba laughed, and Glinda blinked as warmth bubbled up inside her from the sound. It was… oddly musical. Had she always laughed like that?

“Morrible wouldn’t have taken you if she didn’t think you had _some_ kind of talent.”

“Oh, please,” Glinda muttered, rolling her eyes as her earlier blush seemed to suffuse her entire body. Suddenly, she was grateful for the dim lighting. “You and I _both_ know she only took me on because you asked her to.”

“Maybe,” Elphaba said, shrugging one shoulder. “Come on. Try again. But this time, _feel_ what you’re after, and then demand that it is given to you.”

How could she possibly _feel_ magic to life when the only thing she could feel right now were a hundred and twelve different warring emotions raging in her blood and through her brain? As if on cue, her memory provided her with a brief, flickering image of Elphaba’s warm arm around her waist, and she gasped as a small ball of flame jettisoned from the tip of her wand and floated gently around her. The little thing shimmered with pink and yellow light; it looked more like a star than a fireball, especially since it settled into a slow orbit around her and pulsed with every beat of her heart.

Elphaba’s bright, cackling laughter seemed to make the barn only that much lighter.

“There, see? I told you so,” she said, rolling up from her place on the hayloft to continue whatever it was she was doing up there.

Glinda could only stare at the little light as it made another pass in front of her. She had done _magic_. For the first time, she had done easy, spontaneous, _successful_ magic. And it was all because of… She shook her head sharply, clearing the thoughts away.

“What are you doing up there, anyway?”

“Setting up a workspace,” Elphaba replied at length, and Glinda heard the scraping of hay on wood as her friend moved something else around. Then, a heavy thud sounded overhead, dislodging decades of dust right onto her head and making her sneeze.

“Ugh! Elphie!”

“Sorry. You shouldn’t stand right under the loft like that.”

Glinda scoffed, then held out her wand and flicked it again with the thought of _get this off of me_! All at once, a little gust of wind began to whirl around her, emanating from apparently nowhere. The wind whisked away dust and bits of hay from her mostly-immaculate Emerald City tourist outfit—but then it picked up, ripping at her hair and clothing alike.

“Ah! No! S-Stop that!” She flailed her wand, panicking as the wind began to howl in her ears, drowning out her own voice before picking her up and lifting her just a couple of inches off the ground. She tried to shout, tried to call for help, but the wind ate her words and slashed at her fair skin with furious intensity.

Elphaba descended the ladder like some wild hell-beast, her black eyes blazing with reflected light from Glinda’s hovering orb. A few guttural words in that mysterious language flew from her lips, and she gestured sharply at the whirlwind before flicking her wrist downward, fingers outstretched and curled like a monstrous claw.

The wind died, and Glinda dropped breathlessly to the floor.

Both of them stood—or sat—frozen, staring at one another for a long moment of silence. Then, to Glinda’s deepest shame, she began to cry, curling up tight on the dirty, disgusting floor of the ancient barn and sobbing into her torn sleeves.

“Glinda… Glinda, are you all right?” Elphaba said, her voice halting and strange.

Glinda only shook her head, unable to get words past the thick dam of tears in her throat. She heard her friend draw closer, horribly unfashionable boots scraping the ground before coming to a stop a few inches away. Her shadow loomed large over Glinda as she lay on the floor, which only made her sob harder; why had Elphie even wanted her to come along on this ridiculous quest? What could Glinda possibly do for someone like her? She couldn’t even do magic properly!

“It’s… We’ll get you a new outfit. Eventually,” Elphaba said at length.

For a moment, Glinda only sniffled. Then, the sheer hilarity of her friend’s serious tone washed over her, and she found herself laughing the ugliest laugh through her tears. Of course her ridiculous roommate would think she was only concerned with her clothing. When had she ever given her any reason to believe otherwise?

“It’s not… the outfit,” she said, sniffling.

“Oh.” Elphaba paused, then awkwardly knelt down beside her friend. “…It was a good spell.”

“A good spell?” Glinda barked a laugh once more, looking up at Elphaba through her tears. “You call that a _good spell_?”

Elphaba blinked, her dark eyes filled with confusion.

“Well… it was. You’ve never conjured up any magic _that_ powerful before.”

“Elphie, it almost killed me!”

“…I stopped it before it caused any major damage,” Elphaba replied at length, reaching out a hand to brush her thumb over Glinda’s cheek. Glinda flinched as the wandering finger brushed over a small cut; apparently, she’d been a little more torn up than she’d thought by the debris. Still, it wasn’t pain that had suddenly stolen her breath.

She twitched away from Elphaba, forcing herself to sit upright so that she could wipe away her tears with her sleeves—and hide the blush that surged anew onto her fair skin. Elphaba watched her carefully, then furrowed her brow.

“What did you do to call up that wind, anyhow?”

“I—what? Oh. I don’t know, I was just… dusty, and I just told it to get off of me. That’s all.”

“What, exactly, was the intent you set for it?”

“Just… _get off me_.”

Elphaba blinked, then nodded slowly as if she had just been told some great secret.

“Ah. You weren’t specific enough. It was going to get _everything_ off you. Dust. Clothes. The ground. Your skin.”

“…I’m sorry, did you say it was going to remove _my skin_?”

Elphaba only shrugged.

“You said _get off_. You didn’t specify what.”

A chill ran up and down Glinda’s spine as she hugged herself there on the floor.

“Can magic actually do that? Just… peel off someone’s skin?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Elphaba replied, slowly standing up and dusting dirt and hay off of her dingy black skirt. “There’s a lot of… interesting things in that book that Madame Morrible gave me.”

“That you stole from her, you mean.”

“No; she gave it to me, right in front of the Wizard. She never said she wanted it back,” Elphaba said, folding her arms over her chest. “Her fault for not being more specific.”

Glinda stared at her friend, who smirked back at her.

“…Right.” She sniffled again, now mostly in control of her faculties once more, and looked up to the hayloft where Elphaba had been setting up her space. “Elphie?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think…. Do you think I could have a look at that book?”

Elphaba quirked a brow at her, then slowly lowered it again as she pondered the question.

“You can look,” she said finally. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to read it. Morrible couldn’t, and neither could the Wizard.”

“Well, I’m not like them. Maybe you can only read it if—if you’re a good person,” Glinda replied, rubbing her face once more to clear the remaining dampness away.

Elphaba’s face darkened, and she scoffed a laugh.

“Then _I_ wouldn’t be able to read it.”

“What? Elphie…” But it was too late. Elphaba had already scurried up the ladder again, her slender form hardly making a sound against the dry old wood of the loft.

“Come on. It’s safer up here.”

“You’re going to make me climb up there?”

No answer. Glinda heaved a great sigh and stared at her little light for a moment, then finally forced herself upright. Her clothes were a mess; nothing to be done about that now, though. After a few moments of working up her courage, she carefully began to ascend the ladder, praying that she didn’t get any splinters from the rough wood that scraped against her bare hands.

Thankfully, she got up without further incident. In the loft, Elphaba loomed over the open book, sitting down just in front of it and carefully flipping its thin, ancient pages. The broomstick leaned up against one corner of the loft, cushioned by hay. In the space of a few minutes, Elphaba had apparently made herself the beginnings of a little home.

“Here,” Elphaba said, gesturing for Glinda to come closer. “I found something easy.”

Glinda moved to sit beside her, peering down at the page. It was complete and utter gibberish. The longer she looked at it, the more the words seemed to move across the paper, ink sliding around into different shapes that Glinda was positive were not letters.

“You can actually read this?”

“You can’t?”

The two of them looked at one another, and Glinda hesitated a moment before shaking her head.

“It’s like it keeps… moving.”

Elphaba’s brows furrowed as she looked back at the book.

“Not to me. It’s just… a book. The words are a little strange, but they aren’t moving.”

“Well,” Glinda began after a moment, “then you’ll just have to teach me.”

“To read?”

“No! To use magic! I can read just fine—just not _that_ book.”

Elphaba regarded her for a long moment, bringing up a slender-fingered hand to rub at her chin.

“…I don’t know. I probably wouldn’t be a very good teacher.”

“You’re the expert here,” Glinda replied. “You know more about magic than anyone I’ve ever met. Even Madame Morrible, and _she_ was the sorcery instructor.”

“I definitely do not know more magic than Morrible.”

“Yes, you do! Because you can read _that_ thing, and she couldn’t!”

Elphaba stared, then slowly nodded as if this were an entirely new idea she had never considered. Glinda only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes; for as brilliant as Elphie was, she seemed bound and determined to refuse to recognize her own greatness.

“So, teach me. I have to—I don’t want to just drag you down, here. I want to be able to help.”

“…Okay. How much do you remember from the sorcery course? She had the fundamentals laid out really well—”

“Basically nothing,” Glinda chirped, beaming at her friend. “I am _entirely_ your student.”

Elphaba’s face fell, and she let out a long-suffering sigh.

“…Right. From the beginning, then. We’ll start with the basics.”

Glinda had never seen anyone light up the way Elphaba did when she was teaching something. Though it was clear she had been reluctant to do so at first, the more she kept talking, the more her passion bubbled up to the surface. She didn’t only talk about magic, either. She talked about biology lessons Glinda recognized from Dr. Dillamond’s class, and how that related to the practice of the magical arts; she spoke about history, and the ways in which magic had been used from the time of the first Ozma to the Wizard’s own strange spells (of which she was deeply dubious); she explained her own feelings, her own history with magic, and told Glinda all of the ways her magic used to get the better of her before she learned to control it.

By the time that night fell, Glinda’s head throbbed with the effort of trying to keep up as her eyes began to droop shut. The two of them had shared what little food Elphie had left in her pack somewhere partway through the intertwining lectures; Glinda wondered how they were going to feed themselves come tomorrow. She couldn’t worry long, however. Elphaba’s voice wove patterns in and out of her mind, distracting her again and again from her anxieties about the future, and, before she knew it, she had fallen into a deep, comfortable slumber as her star winked itself out beside her.

Somehow, someway, the two of them would make things okay. Between Elphaba’s smarts and obvious magical skill and Glinda’s… shining personality, they would be unstoppable.

Probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2, woop woop!  
> Canon will drift in and out of focus until the beginning of Act II of the story, so you may recognize some scenes from the musical and/or the books as we move forward!
> 
> Also can I just say that Glinda is a really underrated character? The various authors could've done so much with her, she's got so much potential--but, too often, she's written off as the 'airhead' and nothing more, despite her moments of softness. That's why I chose to spend so much time in her head! (Other chapters will be more Elphaba-centric, but for now we're having the Glinda Experience).
> 
> Thank you for reading! I appreciate you new readers, and you old fans that have followed me over here!  
> Your kudos and comments keep me going :D See you next week for the next installment of "A Second Chance"!


	3. Sit Still, Look Pretty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glinda has a nightmare--and then is forced to fend for herself while Elphaba makes a supply run. How is she supposed to sit still and look pretty in an ugly, run-down, dusty old barn? A little cleaning is in order...

The sun beamed in through sheer pink curtains held by big brass rods, bathing the entire room in warm, rosy light. Glinda sat on a plush-cushioned bench in front of her beautiful white vanity, counting the strokes as she ran an ivory brush through her golden curls. She had a full day ahead of her: meeting with some of Daddy’s business associates, attending the charity gala her mother was hosting, charming the guests and reaffirming bonds between the Gillikinese elite. After all this, college was going to be a breeze!

Her parents still didn’t quite understand her desire to go off to Shiz; after all, she had everything she needed to be successful right here and now. Her golden hair, her charming smiles, her bell-like voice—everything was _perfect_.

She hadn’t quite told them she wanted to study magic. She had mentioned it, in passing—an elective credit, at best, as she pursued a deeper study of successful people in the history of Oz. If they knew what she really wanted, well… they wouldn’t have allowed her to attend. Sorcery was for intelligent, bookish hermits, not for beautiful young socialites like her. Thankfully, her father was incredibly indulgent and allowed her to apply, convincing her mother to agree by discussing the many potential new connections to be made in the hallowed halls of the ancient university.

Her brush faltered for half a stroke, and she cleared her throat before setting it down on the vanity, staring at herself in the mirror. Crystal blue eyes looked out at her from a heart-shaped face framed by the elegant golden filigree of her hair. Where there would normally be a charming, bow-lipped smile, however, she found a curving, delicate frown.

That’s all she was to them: a point of connection to other powerful movers and shakers with more money than any of them could spend in one lifetime. She was a bartering chip—a tool for creating alliances and seeking ever-greater fortunes.

She forced a smile to her lips, but the hollow space behind her eyes made it ring false.

“Come on, Galinda,” she whispered to her reflection. “Pull it together.”

After a moment, she stood and crossed to her wardrobe to pull on one of her best outfits for the long afternoon ahead—but she recoiled when the wardrobe doors opened and released a smell of damp, dusty hay.

The world briefly flickered around her; the warm light filtering in through her curtains vanished, replaced by heavy, shadowy darkness pierced by sunbeams that were immediately swallowed by the vast emptiness of the room. Panic bubbled up in her chest, and she pulled gloved hands to her sternum as her vision flickered back to her familiar old room—but now it was dark and silent as a tomb, curtains hanging thick with dust that turned the pink into a deep, tired grey.

A sense of _loss_ pervaded everything, seeming to cling to fabric and stone alike. Glinda backed herself against one of the walls, hearing only her own ragged breathing echoing in the chamber as blood pounded in her ears.

“You’ve ruined us,” someone said, their voice a ghoulish hiss.

Glinda looked up and gasped when she saw a creature that may have once been her mother, though withered and worn by the ravages of time, shambling like a corpse toward her. Her hair hung in silvery wires around her face, and her glaring eyes had neither pupil nor iris—only vast, blank fields of white strung through with blood-red vessels.

“Selfish girl. You were so beautiful. We made you perfect. All you had to do was _obey_ ,” the creature snarled, raising gnarled and wrinkled hands to stretch out toward her.

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t speak. The room spun around her as her eyes desperately searched for an escape route— _any_ escape—from the horrible monster that had been her mother. Against the large picture-window she had loved so much, obscured by the dusty curtains, leaned a worn wooden broomstick. It seemed almost… familiar, though she couldn’t quite place it.

_Glinda_ , a voice whispered in her mind, as if emanating from the broom itself.

She didn’t think twice; she ran to it, her body jerking around her mother’s grasping hands, and clung to the dull old wood as fiercely as she could. But how was a broom going to save her from this? She raised it as a weapon, brandishing it at the monster before her—then yelped when she was suddenly yanked a foot or two off the ground.

_Glinda!_

The voice was insistent, now, but the haze of panic swallowed up all attempts at conscious thought.

“Help,” she cried out, kicking her legs desperately as she remained suspended in midair, “please! Please help me! I’m going to fall!”

The broom quivered violently, shaking her whole body, and the world fell sharply away as glass shattered around her…

“Glinda! Wake up!”

She sat bolt upright, gasping for breath and clutching fistfuls of—of old, dusty hay. Her eyes searched the room frantically as her brain struggled to catch up and sort the dream from reality. A barn—a hayloft—rotting wood—dusty shadows—a green-faced girl staring at her with startled concern written across her angular features…

“…E-Elphie?”

“You must have been having some sort of nightmare,” Elphaba said, concern slowly fading into relief. “You were kicking and muttering in your sleep.”

“A nightmare,” Glinda repeated, drawing in a deep breath to steady herself. “Yeah, of course. It was all just… a nightmare.”

Her heart still pounded in her ears, however, and her blood ran cold when she thought of her mother-monster’s first words: _You’ve ruined us_. Suddenly, the wild beating of her heart sounded more like the ponderous ticking of an enormous clock.

But what did that _mean_?

“Are you all right? You look a little pale. Well,” Elphaba added, shrugging a shoulder, “paler than usual, anyway.”

“I…” For a moment, Glinda considered telling the truth. But the lie came so much more easily to her lips, rising like an obedient dog after years of relentless training: “I’m fine.”

Elphaba regarded her skeptically, and, for a moment, Glinda was worried she would force the issue. But then she turned away, and Glinda released a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

“All right. If you’re sure.”

The green-skinned girl rose, her braided black hair gleaming strangely in the piercing light of a single sunbeam before she reached over to grab her signature black hat and set it atop her head. Glinda stared for a long moment, then immediately dropped her eyes when her friend turned to look at her again.

“We’ll have to get supplies today. Food, spare clothing, candles, parchment…”

“Elphie… do you really think either of us can make a difference?”

Elphaba blinked, turning to examine Glinda with a raised brow.

“What do you mean?”

“I _mean_ … it’s just the two of us. What are we going to do? I know you want to help the Animals, and I… well, I’d like to help them, too, but where do we even start? It’s not like we can just… magic them up some houses, or get them jobs, or… or whatever. We’re college students, not politicians.”

“Your father is a politician,” Elphaba pointed out, turning away and picking up the small bag she had had with her when they had first left for the Emerald City by train that day.

“No, my father is a wealthy businessman with connections,” Glinda replied. “Big difference.”

“Different in that he's _more_ powerful than the politicians, you mean.”

Glinda opened her mouth to argue, then promptly shut it again. How many times had she seen her father sway Gillikinese politics to his whim by throwing the weight of his money behind his words?

“…Fair, I suppose. But _we_ don’t have any money. We don’t have anything except a bunch of rotted hay and an old barn that’s going to fall down any day now.”

“We have magic,” Elphaba said, picking up her broomstick as she slung her pack over her shoulder. “That’s a start.”

Glinda squinched her face and let out a scoff before looking away. Surely magic couldn’t be the answer to everything, or people like Madame Morrible and the Wizard would have already gotten everything they wanted—and much more of what they deserved.

“At any rate, before we can make a solid plan, we need the basics. I’m going to go out for a few hours and see what I can scrape together.”

“Wait—you’re leaving?”

“Someone has to, otherwise we’re just going to be cold and starving out here.”

“But,” Glinda started, rushing to get to her feet and not bothering to dust stray pieces of hay off of her tattered clothing, “what about me?”

“…Well. You can just… stay here,” Elphaba said, brow furrowing.

Glinda’s heart sank. How many times had she heard _that_ before? Always, she was expected to stay behind—to sit still and look pretty in one corner of the room, smiling and waving beatifically to all the men (young or old, it didn’t matter so long as their family was well-connected) while they wined and dined and discussed matters too high and important for someone like _her_ to possibly comprehend.

“I’ll be back soon. There are some families around that I know are sympathetic; they’ll give up a few things if I ask,” Elphaba continued obliviously, heading toward the ladder to descend. “When I get back, we can start making a plan of action.”

Glinda only nodded, half-listening as her friend strode tall and confident toward the heavy doors of the barn.

“Make sure no one finds us, Glinda!”

“Yeah… okay,” she replied, sighing as she slowly sank back to the old wood of the hayloft. Without another word, Elphaba was gone. A shadow flickered overhead, briefly blotting out the rays of sunlight that struggled to pierce through the roof, and then vanished as quickly as it had come.

“Why did you even want me to come along with you?”

She cast her gaze around the hayloft and let out another long, deep sigh. At least at home, she could have sat around looking pretty in _comfort_. Here, she was just a piece of raggedy furniture to accentuate the lonesome misery of the abandoned structure. Elphie had said that they could move mountains together—or, well, something like that, anyway—but… did she even believe it? For as much as this situation was something entirely new and strange, there was also something horribly familiar about it all.

With a sharp shake of her head, Glinda rose, forcing those old, tired thoughts of doom and despair deeper into the crevices of her brain. If Elphaba was going to rush around trying to collect all the things they would need, then Glinda would work toward the one thing she knew how to do in just such a situation: clean up what she could to make the place sparkle.

Well. She didn’t know if she could get a _sparkle_ out of this place, but she could settle with at least ten fewer layers of dust. Though, admittedly, she didn’t have a broom. Or a mop. Or any sort of cleaning supplies.

“Why must everything be so impossibly difficult?” She muttered to herself, letting out an exasperated breath before carefully shuffling her way back down the ladder. Maybe, if she looked around, she could find a well to draw water from, or one of those… pump things. Old farms had those kinds of things, didn’t they? They always did in fairy tales, anyway.

She pushed her way through the narrow opening between the barn doors, then began her search in earnest. Everything was either overgrown or barren by turns out in this bizarre wasteland; the wild grass grew higher than her waist in many places, and yet the fields a few yards away were as dusty and dry as the inside of the barn. She found a rusty pitchfork leaning against the back corner of the barn and crinkled her nose. If she so much as breathed on it, she had a feeling she would contract a hundred or more diseases at once.

At the rear of the barn between the dilapidated structure and the field, Glinda found what she was looking for: an old iron water pump, complete with up-ended wooden bucket that would _maybe_ hold water long enough to carry it back inside the barn. It was better than nothing, at least; she rolled up what was left of her tattered sleeves from her earlier magical mishap, then approached the heavy metal pump and gripped the lever.

It didn’t budge.

She scowled at the obstinate device, leaning all her weight on the lever. All she got for her efforts was a bruised spot across her stomach and worn patches of skin on her hands; she could see a few flakes of rust and worn iron dropping from the sides of the miserable thing, but otherwise she didn’t seem to be having any effect on it whatsoever.

“Well,” she said to herself, wincing as she rubbed at her hands, “that’s just _perfect_.”

Then, all at once, an idea struck her: if she were careful, then maybe…

She lifted her hands, pointing them both with outstretched fingers toward the pump.

“Pump. I want you to pump some crystal-clear water right into that bucket. Right now. Let’s go.”

For a long moment, nothing happened. But she couldn’t give up—she wouldn’t. She could _do_ this. She could do… _something_ useful, surely. Her mother’s voice from her dream crept up the back of her neck like a spider: _You’ve ruined us. Selfish girl_.

She closed her eyes tight and breathed through it, forcing all her attention and all her fears onto the pump in front of her.

“Please. _Please_ , pump out some water.”

She twitched when she heard a low, metallic groan followed by a sharp creak of iron entering into motion for the first time in many long years. Glinda opened her eyes and saw, to her amazement, that water now fell in small, fitful streams from the mouth of the pump that moved as if on its own accord.

Laughter bubbled up inside her, and Glinda threw her arms up in victory.

“Yes! Yes, I did it!”

She reached down to grab the bucket—and, as expected, it let more out than it kept in. So, she tossed it aside, rolling her eyes as she crouched next to the pump. How could she carry enough water into the barn to clean without a bucket?

Maybe…

Laughter rose from deep inside her, and she stretched her hands out once more, imagining a bucket where there was none. Between her hands, a bubble began to form around the dripping stream, and soon filled itself up to the top before the pump suddenly stopped working once more.

She had a bubble filled with water. She had done _magic_ , all on her own.

Without thinking, she let out a shrill whoop of joy, carefully cradling the bubble and spinning around with it. Her laughter rang high and bright, resounding from the woods before it was swallowed by the tall grass once more. Before she had the time to question herself, she ran with the bubble back to the barn, carefully shimmied her way back inside, and threw the iridescent orb against the ground to release a wave of water to wash away the layers of dust and dirt and grime that had settled over the place after years of disuse.

The only problem was that she hadn’t found a mop. So now she was faced with wet floors, the water sloshing murky debris all over the place.

“…I maybe should have thought this through a little better, huh?”

Well, whatever. It was a start, anyway. But as she surveyed the slowly congealing sludge before her, those now-familiar words snaked their way back through her mind: _Ruined us. Selfish_.

A chill ran up and down her spine, and she moved to climb back up into the safety of the hayloft. It had only been a dream—just a terrible nightmare, nothing more. If she wrote to her dearest Mumsy and Popsicle, they would surely understand. They might even be willing to lend a little cash to the cause, or at least talk to the Wizard on their behalf.

She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought of that before. Of course her own _parents_ wouldn’t turn against her; she was too valuable to just be abandoned because of one silly little mistake. And Elphaba had a point, after all—her father was wealthy and powerful. He would be an excellent ally in the future, just as he had always indulgently stuck up for her childish wishes when she was a little girl.

As she lay back in the dusty hay of the loft, now registering the disgustingly overwhelming scent of the wet hay below, she let out a long sigh and forced herself to relax. Everything was going to be fine. Teenagers were supposed to go through a rebellious period, right? She was just… a couple of years late, that was all.

That was all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 3! Let's give it up for day 3!  
> A little bit slower, this one, but it's setting up some stuff--a secret tool that will help us later.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Your comments and kudos mean the world to me :D


	4. High Risk, No Reward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elphaba has been gone quite awhile, and Glinda begins to worry. Just as the waiting begins to grate on her nerves, however, Elphaba finally returns with some of life's little necessities--and a heaping helping of bad news. But hey, what are best friends for? Sometimes, you just have to agree to revolt against the corrupt government together.

Elphaba had not returned by the time the sun began to slant toward the horizon. Glinda had no idea what time it was, out in the middle of the nothingness as she was, but she knew it had been more than a few hours since her friend had left. The puddle of water on the ground floor had long since dried into a foul-smelling mess, but Glinda had mostly gone nose-blind to it by now.

She’d been entertaining herself by testing more of her magic in between bouts of sudden and violent worry; after the panic subsided, she would settle herself again, summoning up that tiny, sparkling light before extinguishing it and then lighting it again shortly thereafter. She called up more winds, though she was careful to contain them as best she knew how and forced them away anytime they got a little too frightening for her. Still, when the light pouring through the cracks of the old barn turned first orange like a flame and then the red of blood, Glinda found that it was impossible to focus on playing with her talents any further.

“Elphie… where are you?” She whispered into the darkness, looking anxiously toward the heavy barn doors as the light she had created floated in a gentle orbit around her.

What if she had decided to start her little war already? What if she’d gotten involved with the Animal workers in Munchkinland? What if she’d gone back to Oz, or to Shiz, or… What if she’d been hurt?

Glinda wrung her hands, nestling further against the itchy hay that poked through the thin, breezy fabric of her clothing. A cold  wind accompanied the setting of the sun, and her stomach let out a low, desperate gurgle that made her nearly double over with sudden pain. She hadn’t eaten anything since last night. Elphaba was supposed to bring food, supplies, warmer clothing… What if she never came back? There was no way she could stay here in this barn for another day without any kind of comfort. She’d starve to death if she didn’t freeze first.

She never should have come along. She should have let Elphaba run off into her ridiculous crusade alone. Maybe then that girl would have grown some common sense. Instead, she’d just fanned the flames, making Elphaba believe that maybe the two of them could somehow destroy the entire institution that kept Animals oppressed in Oz—as if two girls just out of their teenage years could overthrow the entire government.

Her father would be worried sick. Maybe he was even looking for her, organizing search parties. Had they let him know? Did they tell him that his only daughter, the apple of his eye, was a wanted crimina l?

Maybe he would disown her ,  instead. Maybe he’d already made the announcement to all the Gillikinese elite that his daughter was dead to him. Or was she still more valuable alive?

Another low burble rose from her stomach, and she glared down as she clasped her hands over it—as if that could silence a grumbling belly. Had she ever been this hungry before? Probably not. Except for maybe that time she was trying to shed a couple of pounds quickly, just to look her best in that brand-new dress. How long did it take someone to starve to death? Surely it would take more than one day. Wouldn’t it?

She felt delirious, like her mind was floating on an angry sea of stomach acid. When Elphaba  did finally come back, they were going to have some words, all right. She had more than a few choice ones  picked out already . For example :  how dare you ; and  what on earth is wrong with you ; and  please for the love of all that is good tell me that you brought me a hot meal. Four course or better would be nice.

The weight of her eyelids seemed to be increasing exponentially with every moment of darkening light, and before she knew it, she had fallen asleep, dreaming of the last grand dinner her parents had hosted—though everything she grabbed for turned to ash in her fingers as her mother’s voice exhorted her to wait until all the guests had left. The guests never left. She was on the verge of mass nocturnal homicide in her dreamscape when the barn door opened with a low groan, like the bellow of a wounded animal.

Glinda jolted upright, clearing her throat and blinking rapidly as Elphaba’s familiar silhouette slipped in through the crack in the door, then promptly leaned back against the old wood. All the words Glinda had wanted to say died away when she saw the way her friend’s shoulders were trembling even in the dark. Was she… crying?

“…Elphie?”

A sharp clearing of the throat answered her. Elphaba’s shadow stood straight and tall, then slowly moved closer to the loft. Thankfully, she held a heavy bundle in one hand, and her usual bag seemed to be bulging now instead of hanging thin and useless at her side.

“I brought supplies,” Elphaba replied, though her voice sounded hollow.

“Oh, thank goodness. What took you so long? I was starting to worry,” Glinda replied, pouting down at her friend as her little starlight hovered just over her head. “Also, if I don’t eat something soon, I’m going to absolutely lose my mind .”

Elphaba only nodded, carefully climbing the ladder with her bundles before settling herself across from Glinda in the small space afforded to them in the loft. Once she had gotten everything comfortably arranged, she reached into the bundle and dug out a loaf of bread, a block of hard cheese, and an end of dry sausage. Glinda’s mouth immediately started to water.

In silence, Elphaba passed the foodstuffs over to Glinda, then shifted to pull out a small iron and glass lantern from a wrapped bundle in the bag she always carried. Carefully, she took some of the old hay and whispered to it in that unusual tongue, and the hay caught flame . A warm, comfortable light washed over them, and Elphaba cleared a space to set it down where it wouldn’t harm anything.

Glinda didn’t hesitate even a moment; with a stomach snarling like an angry alley mutt, she dug into the food, taking massive mouthfuls of anything that struck her fancy. The bread was surprisingly soft and fluffy, the sausage well-seasoned, and the cheese tough but rich—it was one of the best meals she had had in her entire life, probably because she had  been  worried  that  it would never arrive.

Once the edge had been taken off her hunger, however, Glinda looked up at Elphaba and noted the way her friend had pulled her knees up to her chest, curling in on herself and staring off into the darkness below.

“Are you not going to eat?”

Elphaba grimaced, shaking her head slightly.

“I ate while I was out.”

“Oh. All right,” Glinda said, tearing off another chunk of bread and swallowing it down nearly whole. Elphaba passed her a flask full of cool, clear water, and she gladly guzzled it down before looking up again. “Did you find out anything? Are they looking for us?”

Elphaba scoffed a laugh.

“Oh, they’re looking for us, all right.”

“Is it that bad?”

“They’ve called a witch hunt. Almost as soon as we were out of the city, they got word out to everyone. You know what they’re calling me?  Wicked.  A wicked witch, ” she said, her voice trembling—with anger or fear, Glinda couldn’t decide. “Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“Elphie… I’m sorry,” Glinda said, reaching over to gently rest her hand on Elphaba’s arm.  But what did you expect to happen? You had to have known they would do something like this. There was no use saying it, though; maybe it would be just the thing she needed to get her to give up on this foolish business for good.

“They’re right, you know,” Elphaba murmured, her voice hushed as she kept her eyes fixed on some unknown point in the distance. “I  am wicked.”

“That’s not true! You’re trying to do something good for people—for Animals —f or everyone in Oz. Your heart is in the right place, and someday they’ll understand that.”

Elphaba chuckled and shook her head, giving Glinda a wry smile.

“I went to see Nessa. Just to make sure she was okay and t o try and get ahead of the news. She told me my fath—she told me that Frexspar is one of the head witch-hunters already. As soon as he received word from the Emerald City, he denounced me and took up arms. I’m sure it thrilled him. After all, he’s been waiting on a chance like this since I was born.”

Glinda’s heart dropped. Her fears had come true—only slant. She had never considered it from Elphie’s perspective—never thought about how her own Unionist father would react to the news that she had challenged the Wizard and betrayed all of Oz. He already hated her ; no wonder, then, that he had immediately turned against his own daughter.

“Oh, Elphie,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “ You went all the way back to Shiz? You could have gotten caught!” She hesitated a moment, considering the value of continuing her tirade about how long she had waited, practically starving to death, then  chose to add  instead, “ What did Nessa say ?”

“She said he was right to do it, of course. Why wouldn’t she? She’s always been his favorite. She can’t afford to lose that now. Besides… she’s got other concerns. Apparently, she’s been officially named the next Eminent Thropp now that I’m out of the way,” Elphaba said, finally letting her eyes drop to the worn black cloth of her old traveling cloak. “But she sympathized with me, at least a little. Didn’t call the guards on me or raise the alarm to the rest of the college . In fact, she asked me for a favor.”

“A… favor?” Glinda’s brows drew together, and she scooted to sit closer to her friend as the lamplight flickered. “What kind of favor?”

“She asked how I had managed to get back to Shiz so quickly, and I explained everything. The broomstick, the grimmerie—everything,” Elphaba said, bringing a hand up to rub at her face. “She asked me to help her walk. On her own. Without the chair, without any help. You know, since I had abandoned her.”

“Can you even do something like that with magic?”

“Well… not directly, I don't think. It would have been too risky for me to try to put some sort of spell on her. I had no idea what it would do. Not like I’ve studied this kind of magic before. But I looked through the grimmerie and I found a spell that could enchant an object to do just about anything you wanted it to do. And father had given Nessa those hideous silver shoes…”

“Did it work?” Glinda asked, leaning in closer and tilting her head to one side, eyes wide.

For a long time, Elphaba didn’t respond. She stared off into space again, dark eyes growing haunted and harried as she idly picked at her cloak with her long green fingers.

“…It worked,” she said, though Glinda almost couldn’t hear her. “She stood up. She walked a few steps . And then she started screaming.”

“What? Why? Elphie, what did you do?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, finally lowering her head to rest her forehead on her knees. “I don’t know. I was just so tired, and frustrated, and—and those shoes reminded me of all the horrible things Frexspar had done, and… Before I knew it, the shoes had turned blood red, and Nessa couldn’t stop screaming. That’s when I grabbed the broom and flew. ”

“ Yo u left her?”

“Of course I left her,” Elphaba hissed, turning her head sharply to glare at Glinda. “Everyone in the damned dormitory heard her. How could I stay? ”

Glinda just stared at her friend, leaning away to get a better look of the tall, lean girl whose form seemed to flicker in the shadows cast by the lantern beside them.

“You want to know the strangest part?” Elphaba murmured, hunching her shoulders with a grimace. “Before I got too far away, I swear I  could hear  her laughing.”

A chill ran down Glinda’s spine, and she frowned.

“…Maybe the pain went away?”

Elphaba shrugged,  turning her head away  and letting her eyes close. She looked exhausted; every time the light flickered enough to illuminate her sharp-angled features, Glinda could see how hollow she looked, even after only a couple days of exile.

“Elphie… maybe we should go back. If we just explain everything, maybe we can get some people to help us with the Animals. We could… sign a petition, or something. Organize a protest,” she  said, creeping closer to lean up against her friend and share what body heat she had. Later, she would check to see if Elphaba had been wise enough to bring better clothes—but right now, that didn’t matter.

“It’s too late,” her friend replied, letting out a long, deep sigh. “They’ve already called me the Wicked Witch. The Wizard will look weak if he backs down now.” She paused a long moment, then turned her head and opened her eyes again to look at Glinda. “I’m sorry I asked you to come with me. I never should have gotten you involved in this.”

“Hey, I’m perfectly capable of making my own choices,” Glinda argued. “You didn’t force me to get on that broom and fly away.”

“…No. But you could say I did.” 

Suddenly, Elphaba sat upright, gently taking Glinda’s hands into her own.  Glinda blinked, her thoughts grinding to a sharp halt as her heart skipped a beat. 

“Glinda, you could go now and just tell them that I stole you away. That I didn’t give you a choice. They would believe you,” she said, her voice lower and softer than Glinda had ever heard. “You could go back and live your life instead of being stuck here in this barn while I try to fight my battles.”

Glinda hesitated a long moment, then frowned as she grasped Elphaba’s hands.

“You said we would be in this together.”

Elphaba blinked, raising her brows before furrowing them again.

“This isn’t your fight. You don’t have to be here.”

“What, and leave you all alone? I can help, Elphie. You just have to let me,” Glinda said, tightening her grasp on her friend’s hands. Her heart was racing, and her skin felt fever-hot despite the chill in the air. She was probably getting sick from this disgusting barn and the lack of proper meals; surely it had nothing to do with the way Elphaba looked at her, eyes dancing in the lantern flame.

“…But what if you get hurt? This is serious, Glinda,” Elphaba muttered, her face twisting up as if she were in pain. “This isn’t the same as breaking some rules so that you could go to a party at some seedy dive.”

“I won’t get hurt. We’ll protect each other,” Glinda said, setting her jaw with determination as she forced Elphaba to look at her with the intensity of her gaze. “That’s what best friends do. Right?”

Elphaba stared at her as if she had  completely lost her mind. Then, slowly, a smile broke out across her lips—the first genuine smile Glinda had seen since their ill-fated outing in the Emerald City.

“I suppose so.”

“Then it’s settled. We’re in this together,” Glinda said, giving Elphaba’s hand a firm shake. “So you better not leave me again while you go off and have adventures. I was getting delirious. I even tried to clean this stupid barn.”

Elphaba chuckled, then blinked as if startled and reached for her bag.

“That reminds me,” she said, digging through whatever else she had packed away in there and pulling out a small bundle of tightly bound cloth. When she held it up for inspection, Glinda let out a little gasp as she recognized the outer fabric.

“You got my clothes?” Her voice broke on the last word as her eyes filled with tears.

“You probably would have hated whatever I picked up for you elsewhere,” Elphaba said, shrugging one shoulder as she passed the bundle over to Glinda. “Besides, there were a few things I wanted to grab from our dorm. It just made sense to pick up what I could.”

Glinda couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled up out of her as she flung her arms around Elphaba and squeezed her tight. She felt her friend go rigid at the touch, just as she had several times before—but then, Glinda’s heart skipped a little beat when Elphaba slowly relaxed into the embrace and half-returned it, draping one arm awkwardly around her .

“You’re ridiculous,” Glinda muttered, burying her face into Elphie’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

Elphaba made a noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. The two of them remained like that for a long moment—longer than was perhaps truly necessary—and then slowly separated, neither of them quite meeting the other’s eyes.

“Um,” Glinda finally began, clearing her throat, “I’m… going to go down and change, right quick. These clothes are a mess.”

Elphaba nodded; the warm light from the lantern that reflected off her green skin made it look almost as if she were blushing—but Glinda knew better. Elphie  never blushed , not even when she was dancing on her own  in the Ozdust Ballroom  with dozens of cruel faces jeering at her from the sidelines .

As she carefully picked her way back down the ladder, having unwrapped from her bundle a decent enough outfit that would keep her warm and comfortable, she could have sworn she saw Elphaba holding up a familiar green glass bottle to inspect in the light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Leap Year!  
> I put this one off just a few days specifically so I could post it now. Seemed fitting.
> 
> This is the point where my timeline and the canon timeline start splintering and meeting up again in strange places, so expect some divergences of what happens when! Some things just can't be avoided, as our girls must learn.
> 
> Thank you for your support, and I hope you enjoyed it!


	5. The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being the sidekick to a rebel is considerably less appealing to Glinda than she had ever imagined--and now that the rebellion is really getting serious, and Elphaba is coming back with injuries more and more often, she decides that it's finally time to take matters into her own hands...
> 
> Too bad her father never taught her how to properly play verbal chess.

Being a rebel on the run was far more difficult than Glinda had ever really anticipated. Thankfully, there was a wider-spread revolution across Oz—not-so-thankfully, they were scattered all over the place with no real base of operations. Even worse, now that Elphaba had made a scapegoat of herself, almost everything that the Animal rights activists did ended up on her shoulders.

The worst thing of _all_ , however, was that Glinda often found herself lagging behind, waiting for Elphaba to come back from some raid or demonstration. Each consecutive trip only grew more dangerous, and Elphaba began to argue that she could travel faster and quieter alone. Maybe she was right—or maybe it was nothing more than a way for her to punish herself while trying to protect people who really didn’t need her protection.

Every time Elphaba returned to the barn, Glinda had to mend fresh tears on her clothing—or, worse, do what she could to clean and mend injuries that had been too long left untended. There was always just a touch of fear, as well; what if Elphaba had been followed, this time? What if someone had marked the way she escaped?

Or, when she took too long to return, there grew the stomach-eating terror that her luck had finally run out, and she had been caught.

“Elphie, you can’t keep doing this,” Glinda said, gently brushing ointment over a small gash that bloomed crimson on Elphaba’s verdant arm. “Every time you go out there, you come back with something worse.”

Elphaba scoffed, shifting uncomfortably in her spot on the hay.

“Please. I’m fine.”

“What was it this time that was so important you nearly got yourself killed?”

“It’s a _scratch_ , Glinda. I’ll live,” Elphaba argued, glaring with those coal-black eyes.

“You never tell me what you see out there,” Glinda muttered, half under her breath, as she gave the wound another sharp swipe of cotton doused in ointment before reaching for the bandages.

Elphaba fell silent, finally looking away and withdrawing her arm to test the binding when Glinda finished her work.

“People are cruel,” she finally said, her shoulders slumping. “A Dog had to watch while they cut the ears and tails off her pups. It would made them stronger, they said. Better guards.” She held up her bandaged arm briefly, for emphasis. “One of their knives. Better me than the pup it was meant for.”

Glinda grimaced, folding her arms over her chest.

“Wasn’t anyone doing anything about it?”

“It’s perfectly _legal_ ,” Elphaba spat. “Dogs are property. People can do with their property what they want. They had the Dog muzzled for barking and howling at them to stop. Her pups couldn’t speak a word. They should have been able to. They were old enough.”

“Maybe… maybe the Wizard just doesn’t know?”

“How could he not know? He’s the _great_ and _powerful_ Wizard of Oz, remember?”

“Well, I mean, we clearly saw that was a little bit over-exaggerated—”

“A little?”

“—but I’m sure he wouldn’t just let people be pointlessly cruel to Animals _or_ animals.”

Elphaba scoffed, slowly getting up and wincing as she did so. Glinda could only wonder how many injuries she was hiding under her concealing black dress; it had taken enough cajoling just to get her to expose her arms for treatment.

“Don’t tell me you’re going back out there already,” Glinda said, frowning as she pushed herself up. “You need to rest, Elphaba. What good are you going to be to anyone when you’re barely conscious? When was the last time you even slept?”

“I’m _fine_. There’s a raid on one of the holding facilities for Animal labor planned this evening. I have to be there. I have to help them.”

“I could help,” Glinda began, only to falter when Elphaba turned her intense gaze onto her. “I… I could, you know. You said we would be in this together, and I’ve hardly done anything. All I do is sit around here in this stupid barn for days on end, wondering if you’re going to come back this time. I’m not _completely_ useless—I’m getting better at magic, and even if you didn’t want me out there on the front lines, I could talk to people or make flyers or something. People love me. I’m charming.”

“This isn’t some socialite ball,” Elphaba said, her brows furrowing. “There are guns. Knives. Explosives. You can’t talk to someone who has a gun in your face.”

“Have you ever even _tried_?”

“Oh, please, don’t start,” Elphaba replied, rolling her eyes as she headed for the ladder to the main floor of the barn.

“I’m going with you this time. Where are we going?” Glinda asked, immediately moving to join her friend.

“ _We_ aren’t going anywhere. _I’m_ going to the Emerald City, and _you’re_ staying here. Where it’s safe.”

“I won’t. We go together, or—”

“Or _what_?”

Elphaba whirled to glare down at her, dark eyes sparking with something deep and dangerous—but Glinda knew better. Rather than back down, she took a step closer and drew in a long, slow breath to calm her suddenly racing heart.

“We go together, or I’m going to snap your broomstick in half.”

“…You wouldn’t dare.”

“Oh, no? Try me.”

The two of them glowered at one another, Elphaba looming several inches taller. After a few moments, however, Elphaba finally let out a sharp sigh and threw her hands up.

“ _Fine_. You can come. But if anything happens to you—”

“I’ll be fine,” Glinda chirped, rushing to descend the ladder first as her heart and stomach both did flip-flops. “It’s the Emerald City, after all. How rough could it possibly be?”

Far rougher than she had anticipated, apparently. They did not go to the shining busy streets of the Emerald City that they had once explored what felt like ages ago; instead, Elphaba directed their (somewhat overcrowded) broomstick to what appeared to be the absolute worst neighborhood in the entire city.

Nothing sparkled with emerald green on these streets. The buildings stood about as ramshackle and dubious as their barn, dull and drab with age and neglect. Most of the structures seemed to be meant for industrial use, though a few haphazard houses grew up like weeds from the broken concrete in between the looming shadows of centers of processing and packaging. Further down the street, Glinda heard sounds almost like low moaning rising from a building with a barbed-wire fence wrapped around its perimeter.

“What is that?” She half-whispered to Elphaba, pulling her dark shawl tighter around herself to try and better hide her face.

“Animals,” Elphaba replied. “All sorts, caged and contained as livestock.”

“…Wait, you can’t mean that they’re butchering Animals?”

Elphaba did not answer, instead drawing her hat lower over her brows as she slung the broomstick over her shoulder into a special holster she’d had fashioned some time ago. She drew Glinda with her into a narrow alleyway, peering around to monitor the comings and goings of the few people that shuffled through the slums. The afternoon sun beat down on them; soon, it would begin its descent beyond the glittering towers of the city, and that’s when Elphaba and the others would make their move.

“You can stay here,” Elphaba murmured, sparing Glinda a quick glance. “The owners of this place are sympathetic to the cause, though they don’t participate in any of the actual fighting.”

“I said I was going to help, and I will,” Glinda argued, shaking her head and making her golden curls—now somewhat less curly and gorgeous than they had been when she had first left to join Elphaba on her misadventure—bounce around her face.

“You don’t understand. People die in these scuffles.”

“What, so it’s okay for _you_ to die?”

“Yes.”

Glinda blinked, taken aback by Elphaba’s sudden, frank admission. Elphaba finally turned to her, pulling the black knit mask she wore down from her nose and mouth. There was an intensity of expression written on her face that Glinda had not seen before—but she couldn’t quite read it, either. It was almost like she was in pain, or… or frightened.

“Glinda, I made my choice. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I gave up now. They wouldn’t let me live in peace, either. Things are _wrong_ in Oz. Dr. Dillamond was right, and I owe it to him to keep going, to try and make things better for other Animals that live here with us,” she began, keeping her voice low. “I can make a difference here. I can’t have this kind of impact anywhere else. I’m not like you, Glinda. I don’t belong anywhere. I can’t make people see things my way like you can. I thought… some part of me thought it would be fun, the two of us taking on the world together. But it’s not.”

“Elphie… Just let me help. Dr. Dillamond meant something to me, too, you know? Maybe not as much as he meant to you, because… well, let’s face it, I wasn’t exactly the best student. But… I loved that old Goat. And to see what happened to him… it’s wrong. If I can do _anything_ to help, then—”

“Not like this, Glinda,” Elphaba said, letting her eyes slide closed as she leaned against the wall of the building that sheltered them from sight. “You weren’t made for this kind of thing. Just… stay safe, okay?”

Glinda wanted to fight. She wanted to argue until her face was red, and her throat was raw and bloody. How many times had she tried to tell Elphaba that she wanted to be a part of all this? How much more would she have to prove herself before her so-called _best friend_ would finally trust her with anything more than sitting around and keeping up with their home base?

But it was useless. It was the same argument she had had a hundred times before with her mother and father—only she hadn’t fought as hard, then. They had her convinced that she was nothing more than a particularly fun little trophy wife for some wealthy businessman. Elphaba had been the one who had changed that; even in their carefree college days, Elphaba had come to see something in her that no one else had. Despite all their arguing and sniping, she had managed to get Glinda to actually pass courses she hadn’t cared anything about—and, more than that, she had gotten Glinda to realize that she, Galinda Upland of the Upper Uplands, could really be something more than a pretty face with a head full of useless tidbits of knowledge about how to win friends and influence people.

But now? It was clear that Elphaba didn’t believe in her, no more than her parents ever had. Glinda felt like she was useless, old news—obsolete. No matter how much she had changed, no matter how hard she had worked… it would never make a difference.

“Fine,” Glinda said, though the word tasted like ash in her mouth. “I’ll go… scout the perimeter, or whatever.”

Her friend only nodded, slow and weary, as she turned and stalked away, keeping close to the shadows of the buildings that rose like crooked teeth toward the blazing orange sky. If Elphaba wouldn’t let her help, then Glinda would just have to take matters into her own hands.

An hour or so later, she found herself approaching the steps of the Wizard’s palace. Guards had been scrambling all over the place for the past half hour like ants scurrying after a child kicked the hill, which had made them remarkably easy to avoid—but each time she heard the rushing scuffle and thumping of boots, Glinda couldn’t help the nauseous feeling that rose up within her. _What if_ , her mind would begin in its dizzying cycles, _what if she doesn’t make it this time?_ But she had to believe that Elphaba would be okay. Besides, Elphaba had made it very clear she did not want Glinda to be concerned about anything she did.

Really, she had more to be worried about right in front of her: those massive gate-like doors stretching on far overhead and illuminated by shimmering torches. There were no guards posted on either side; they must have rushed to get involved when they heard the Wicked Witch had shown her face here in the Emerald City, of all places. After a few moments’ indecision, Glinda raised her hand and carefully knocked on the door, sending a resounding gong-like noise reverberating through the still night air.

“Hello?”

A tiny window slid open, and a guard peered down at her through the narrow opening.

“Yes? What do you want? Do you need directions?”

“Oh, no. I’m looking to see the Wizard, please,” Glinda replied, reaching a hand up to demurely brush her hair away from her face.

“Terribly sorry, ma’am, but the Wizard is no longer accepting audiences tonight. Try again tomorrow. Or in a week or so, really. He’s a very busy Wizard.”

Glinda hesitated, then carefully pulled the shawl from over her head and rested it around her shoulders, instead. The guard blinked at her a moment, then furrowed their brow.

“I think he may be interested in meeting with me as soon as possible. My name is Glinda Upland, of the Upper Uplands.”

She was amazed how quickly the door opened. The guard practically tugged her inside, then closed the door behind her before taking hold of her arm and leading her down vaguely familiar pathways that she had once traversed with Elphaba at her side. Her insides quivered, anxiety rising like bile in her throat.

“So… lovely weather we’ve been having?” She began, her nervous instinct to make small talk overriding any common sense she may have still possessed.

The guard only shot her a bewildered look.

“Weather? Miss, your family reported you missing almost a month ago.”

“Oh,” Glinda said, her face falling as her heart skipped a beat. Had it really been a month already? “Well, yes. But, as you can see, I’m fine. Completely fine.”

The guard shook their head, bringing her to a halt outside of another large pair of doors before pulling on a cord to ring a bell somewhere deeper inside. From within, Glinda heard a reedy, irritated voice muttering something indecipherable before the door was yanked open to reveal a disheveled old man hurriedly straightening his overcoat and tie.

“Was _just_ sitting down for dinner, of course. Better be good—why… Miss Upland? Is that you?”

Glinda stared at the Wizard for a moment, then awkwardly curtsied to him.

“Your Wizardliness.”

For a long moment, the Wizard glanced between her and the guard. Then, finally, he opened the door wider for Glinda as he flapped one hand to dismiss the guard.

“Please, do come in. Terribly sorry for the state of things, but you see, we normally don’t get visitors this late. You’re the exception, of course. So wonderful to see you, Miss Upland. We had feared the worst, we really did,” he said, holding the door long enough for her to step inside before closing it behind them.

“I’m sorry to have worried everyone,” Glinda said, idly smoothing her sleeves as she looked around what must have been the Wizard’s own personal chambers. “I’m fine, though. As you can see.”

“Your parents were worried sick. As well they should be, pretty little thing like you.”

She forced her standby smile onto her face, just as she had countless times before at parties and soirees with the Gillikin elite. He smiled back at her, slow and easy, before moving to hold out a chair for her to sit at a table covered with newspapers, reports, what appeared to be bills of some sort, and, at one end, a small setting of bread and stew. She sat down obediently, though she glanced down at the headlines as they caught her eye:

_Wicked Witch Strikes Again!_

_Who Needs the Wonderful Wizard of Oz?_

_Animal Rights or Animal Fights?_

_Six Injured, Three Dead in Latest Witch Attack_.

Her heart quivered as she read the last one, her eyes darting to look at _anything_ else as she took a breath to steady the sudden shaking in her hands. She had to be calm, here; she had to play her cards just right. If she didn’t… She didn’t want to know what they would do to Elphaba.

“So,” the Wizard began, lowering himself carefully into his chair and shooting her a smile across the table, “kidnapped by the Wicked Witch of the West and lived to tell the tale, hm? A remarkable story, to be sure.”

Glinda blinked, looking up at him as her brows furrowed.

“Kidnapped?”

“Of course. Everyone knows what happened that day, my dear. The witch brought you here under false pretenses, and when you refused to side with her ridiculous crusade, she decided to take you out of the picture before all of Oz could rally behind you.”

Glinda stared at him as a strange cold feeling flooded her chest. It was almost exactly the cover story Elphaba had offered when she had tried to convince her to leave. He continued to smile at her, but the hard glint in his eye proved that he knew far more than he was letting on. He had laid out the snares; all that was left was for her to catch herself.

“I…”

“Would you like a cup of tea? Just finished brewing it. Nice and hot.”

She nodded stiffly, watching as he carefully rose and doddered around the room to collect a clean cup and saucer. He looked like nothing more than some silly old man, no more dangerous than her own uncle or grandfather; she knew better, however. That look in his eye was the same as the look she’d seen unscrupulous businessmen give to her father time and again, just when they thought they had the upper hand. Her father, thankfully, was clever and cunning. He knew just how to handle them every time they spoke.

But he had never taught _her_ how to do the same. There had never been a need.

“It must have been terrible for you, truly,” the Wizard continued, pouring the tea from the steaming teapot into a small cup with a chip on the edge. “A month in whatever filthy hovel she’s holed herself up in, none of the fine comforts of home. A prisoner—no, a hostage.”

_A bargaining chip._ Glinda shook her head slightly, looking down at her hands as her fingers clenched tightly together. That wasn’t true; no matter their arguments, Elphaba would never use her like that.

“That’s not what happened,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper as he set the cup of tea down in front of her.

“Oh, it’s all right. You don’t have to lie to cover for her, now. You’re safe here,” the Wizard said, smiling that same, easy smile. “And all her accomplices will, of course, be _severely_ punished.”

A chill ran down her spine as she looked sharply up at him. His smile broadened, and she sank into the plush fabric of her seat as she lifted a trembling hand to take the cup of tea. What could she say? She had already been trapped, and she had no idea how he had managed to catch her so easily in his web of words.

“I… Mister Wizard. You have to understand. She thinks she’s doing good,” Glinda began, her throat constricting. “She wants to help the Animals, because she thinks… she thinks people are being cruel to them. Hurting them for no reason. After what happened with Dr. Dillamond at Shiz—If someone were to just… step in, to help the Animals, she would stop. I know she would. Her heart is in the right place.”

“We have a saying, where I’m from,” the Wizard said, without missing a beat. “It goes like this: ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.’ You know what that means, my dear?”

Glinda only shook her head.

“It means that people often do terrible things in the name of a good cause,” the Wizard explained, his voice suddenly growing hard. “It means that people will perfectly rationalize the complete and utter destruction of a society—of a way of life, no less—all in the name of some impossible standard of so-called ‘justice.’ It means that the ends justify the means, no matter how terrible.”

He paused a moment, gesturing to the last headline Glinda had been able to glimpse, then looked at her before leaning down to take a long sip of his stew.

“That witch is a menace.”

“She is _not_ ,” Glinda argued, heat rising to her face before she could stop herself.

The Wizard looked at her again, squinting as if seeing something entirely new that he had missed before. Glinda stared back at him, her jaw clenched as her hands tightened around the teacup.

“…I see. Interesting,” he muttered to himself, taking another spoonful of stew before bringing up an embroidered silk napkin to dab at his mustache. “Regardless of how deeply she’s managed to brainwash you, my hands are tied in the matter. All of Oz wants her blood. They’re terrified of her, you know. Good, honest people who happen to use a little animal labor for their businesses, why—they’re afraid to even go out in their fields anymore, worried about what that shrieking harpy and her minions will do to them. But no one blames _you_ , dear. They know that you were perfectly innocent of all her evils—a mere victim of the Witch’s cruel and manipulative ways.”

Glinda frowned at him, then drained her entire cup of tea in one long gulp before setting the empty dishware off to the side. She could practically feel the iron teeth of his illusory bear trap digging into her ankles.

“Your family will be notified you are here and safe, of course. It’s the least I could do. In fact, I’ll do you one better; I’d love to offer you a position here with us. You would be a beacon of hope for the people in these dark times. A shining light to reassure them that there is still good in the world, and that evil can and shall be overcome,” the Wizard said, gesturing broadly as he looked off into some unknown middle distance. “Glinda the Good; the charming young sorceress who cunningly escaped the clutches of the Wicked Witch. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

She felt numb. Her body was hollow, an echo-chamber for the slow, dull beating of her heart that echoed in her ears. He was offering her everything she’d wanted, right from the start; a position of power and glory, one that would allow her to be so much more than just an ornament for whoever became her father’s best potential business alliance. She would be able to continue learning magic—she could become a _sorceress_ , with a real title.

But it would mean betraying Elphaba. It would mean breaking the heart of the one person who had demanded that she become more than what she was willing to settle for. Elphaba, who had stolen her away from home and then refused to let her join her little crusade. She scowled down at the newspapers on the table.

“Or, of course, we could just send you home. I’m sure you’re absolutely exhausted from your ordeal; wouldn’t want to put any undue pressure on such a lovely young lady. Perhaps you even have a special someone waiting on you back in Gillikin, hm?”

Glinda shook her head slightly, her mind briefly flitting to Fiyero. What had he heard, tucked away in the hallowed halls of Shiz? Did he still want her?

Did she still want him? That felt like a lifetime ago.

“No… nothing like that,” she murmured, staring into her empty teacup as her stomach churned.

“Wonderful! Then you’ll accept? We could use someone like you, Miss Upland. Truly we could. Perhaps you could even lend us aid in capturing that Wicked Witch before she hurts anyone else—or herself?” He paused, then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table as he lowered his voice. “If you truly want to help your friend, Miss Upland… you’ll accept my _exceedingly_ generous offer.”

For a long moment, she sat as silent and still as the porcelain doll everyone had always expected her to be. The tears she had been hiding finally broke free of their dam, rolling down her face as her expression twisted with pain. She leaned forward, folding her arms on the table and burying her head into them as she sobbed, her entire body shaking.

This wasn’t what she wanted—but, in hindsight, what else could she have possibly expected? And now, what choice did she have? She couldn’t run. She couldn’t just walk away, pretend this meeting had never happened, and go right back to Elphaba’s side. It was either go home and be used as a pawn in her father’s grand games, or stay here and have a chance—even the smallest chance—of finally making some moves of her own.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” the Wizard murmured after the silence extended between them for too long. Then he stood and circled the table, patting her back with a grandfatherly hand. “There, there, Miss Upland. You’re safe, now. Everything is good here. You’ll see. The quicker we can get her captured, well, the lighter her sentence will be. After all, the more crimes she is permitted to commit, the more she must be punished.” He paused a moment, then rested his hand on her shoulder as she continued to cry. “Of course, we’ll have to have you make a public statement letting everyone know what happened. How the witch captured you, holding you hostage until you were finally able to flee her clutches for good. How you suffered under her captivity—”

“I d-didn’t suffer,” she said, her voice so low she could hardly be heard.

“Oh, but you _did_. It was absolutely terrible. The things she tried to tell you…”

She grimaced, shaking her head as her damp cheeks burned hot with anger.

“I’ll give you until tomorrow to fully commit yourself to your course of action, my dear,” the Wizard said, straightening up and grabbing what was left of his stew to chug down before wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Of course, you can always be punished for being an accomplice, if you prefer. I’m sure a very public trip to the gallows will smoke her out just as well.”

Her eyes flew wide open in shock, and she jolted upright to look at him, tears and swirling rage both suddenly stilled. This time, he did not smile; he merely stared back at her, his expression cold and calculating.

“Your decision, of course. I’m not in the business of making choices for independent young ladies,” he said finally, with a casual shrug of his shoulders. “Until tomorrow, I must insist you remain a guest of my lovely establishment—and I do mean that literally. I’ll have the guards escort you to the finest suite we have. I’ll stop by around… oh, let’s say noon, that’s always been the best time for dramatic circumstances. Hm. No, wait, an hour before. That way, we can make your big reveal around noon, whichever way you decide. Don’t you think?”

She felt herself tremble as she gazed at him silently, too afraid now to make a sound.

“Hm. Oh, well. We’ll figure it out,” he said, crinkling his nose as he set his empty stew bowl back down before pulling a cord nearby to ring a bell.

Before long, the same guard poked their head through the door, and the Wizard gave them a languid wave.

“Please do escort Miss Upland to our finest guest suite, if you don’t mind. She is absolutely exhausted and needs a good night’s rest to get her thoughts in order.”

The guard nodded, standing to attention and extending an arm toward Glinda. The Wizard looked at her expectantly, and she slowly rose, doing everything she could to keep her chin up and prevent herself from trembling as she walked. As they passed through the threshold, the guard looked at her with a face full of sympathy.

“You look an awful mess, m’lady. No doubt you’ve had a terrible time. We’ll keep you safe here, no worries at all,” they said, gently taking her elbow and walking with her toward a spiral staircase that led up into one of the high, gilded spires of the Wizard’s palace.

Before long, the two of them arrived at the top of the stairwell, and the guard pulled out a keyring to unlock and open the door for her. As she stepped inside, she noted that the Wizard had at least not been lying about this; the room was fit for a princess, all rich mahogany wood and plush velvet. The guard smiled at her when she turned to look back at them.

“Pleasant dreams, miss. I’ll be close if you need anything. Just you holler, all right?”

She nodded, unable to force herself to speak as they closed the door—and her stomach sank when she heard the tumblers of the lock turn over. She was trapped here, no matter how friendly the guard seemed to be.

Before she could think twice, she moved over to the stained-glass window that occupied the entirety of one wall. She pressed her face against the cool glass, letting her eyes slide shut as her weary mind tried to make sense of everything that had just happened.

“Oh, Elphie,” she whispered, fingers fidgeting with the solder that held the window firmly in place. “I’m so sorry. Looks like you were right after all. I never should have come with you.”

Her face twisted in painful synchronicity with her heart, and she slowly sank to the floor; her knees refused to hold her up any longer. That night, she slept there on the floor. It was the only thing that brought her back to the abandoned barn, to the sounds of Elphaba quietly moving around so as not to wake her, to the smell of old hay and coffee, awkwardly brewed in the most haphazard setup Glinda had ever seen.

That night, she cried for everything she had lost—and, worst of all, she cried for the relief she felt, deep in her traitorous heart. She was safe. She was back to normal— _better_ than normal. Maybe, if she played the cards she had been dealt just so, she could help Elphaba in ways neither of them had ever expected. If she were smart enough, clever enough, she could finally prove to everyone just how good she could be.

Or it could all go horribly wrong, and she could end up responsible for her friend’s death at the hands of the Wizard’s growing army of witch-hunters.

 _Please don’t hate me_ , she thought, drawing her knees up to her chest as she began to slowly drift off to sleep, each breath sounding more like the ticking of a worn-down clock with every minute that passed. _I’ll tell you everything someday. You’ll see. You’ll believe me, won’t you?_

But there was no answer. For the first time in months—since she had come to Shiz, on a wild whim to be educated in sorcery—she was completely and utterly alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long one! The story starts actually picking up here (I'm always bad about making my first few chapters kinda slow; these are things I'm learning and working on!) and we start to see some real agency from Glinda. Too bad things don't quite work out like she wanted!
> 
> Thank you for reading, and for your support!  
> Also, I just wanted to mention--if you ever have constructive criticism to share, please do! I'm very serious about improving my craft, so I want to know what doesn't work for you (and, if you can, how to fix it) as much as I want to hear what you enjoyed.
> 
> Hope you all had a wonderful February! Spring is coming!


	6. Thank Goodness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glinda makes her big debut as Glinda the Good to all of the Emerald City, and she feels a little terrible about how much she's enjoying the attention. Then she realizes just how well the Wizard's campaign against Elphaba is going, and... well. Sometimes we have to do horrible things in the pursuit of our dreams, and sometimes we have to make sacrifices to try and save the people we love from themselves.

Her reflection peered back at her as she sat in front of the beautifully carved vanity, the silver mirror illuminating every flaw and fault she had not noticed over the last month. Her curls hung in loose yellow ribbons around her face, and her cheeks looked gaunt and sallow in the dim morning light. She had lost weight—which made sense when she thought about it, as she and Elphaba had been lucky to eat one proper meal a day during their time in the barn—and her once sparkling blue eyes were haunted and hollow as they marked every spot and blemish on her perfect porcelain skin.

She scoffed at the word the moment it crossed her mind: _perfect_. When was the last time she felt that was even remotely true of herself? Certainly, it wasn’t true now. She adjusted the fashionable dress on her shoulders with a sharp jerk, forcing her eyes away from herself as she stood and turned from the vanity.

The guard had brought in a pair of outfits for her to choose: one simple and understated—perfect for a weepy departure from the gallows—and the other the epitome of high fashion in the Emerald City. Naturally, she had elected for the more fashionable of the two; she had always wanted a dress like this. It was a wonderfully elegant and practical sort of _avante garde_ , with asymmetrical sleeves and an almost suit-like top section, all in a delicate powder blue that perfectly complemented her eyes. It even came with a cute little hat that she had pinned into her hair.

She loved it.

She hated herself.

After taking a deep breath, closing her eyes and drinking in the stillness of the morning like the calm before the storm, she turned and sat back on the vanity bench and did what she did best: make herself sparkle. A little foundation washed away the miniature imperfections; a touch of rouge brought color back to her cheeks, making her look far more alive and vibrant than she felt; a bit of mascara lengthened her lashes, accentuating the limpid pools of her eyes; and, finally, a touch of bright, bubblegum-pink lipstick that pulled the whole ensemble together.

It was as good a job as she had ever done. When she dared to gaze into the mirror once more, she hardly recognized the person who flashed a dull, hollow smile back at her.

The palace was already humming below her; she could practically feel the busy vibrations of the preparations on her behalf, the entire structure teeming with life not unlike the delicate encasement of a beehive. She had given her answer to the Wizard about an hour ago, earlier than he had anticipated, and now all the work was underway to make her grand debut on the Ozian stage one to remember. He had left the hour at noon—dramatic timing was everything, he insisted—and now there was nothing to do but sit and wait.

Thankfully, that was the one thing she was especially good at.

As she sat there, staring back at the stranger that occupied her reflection, all she could hear was the slow, dull beating of her heart as it counted away each wasted second until her most remarkable betrayal was finally complete.

A sprightly knock came to her doorway some time later—she couldn’t have said how long, as time meant nothing to her anymore—and the door opened a crack to reveal the twinkling eyes of the guard that had apparently been assigned to watch over her.

“Everything is ready, Miss Upland. Madame Morrible has written the most marvelous introduction for you—with the help of our great Wizard, of course—and word is already spreading all throughout the Emerald City that you’ve been found alive and well. They’re all so excited to see you.”

She only nodded before forcing on her brightest, falsest smile and standing from her perch at the vanity. The guard opened the door all the way for her, bowing as she approached.

“It really is wonderful, you know, how you’re going to stand up against that Wicked Witch and all. After all she did to you—to all of us, really.”

For a moment, she said nothing. Then, she turned her head just enough to look at the guard as they descended the long, spiraling staircase together.

“What is your name? I never did ask.”

“Oh! No bother, miss. I’m no one important.”

Glinda deflated, nodding as she continued to walk.

“Right. Well. Perhaps some of the stories of the witch are a little over-exaggerated.”

The guard blinked at her, then shook their head vigorously as they picked up the pace a bit to awkwardly shuffle alongside her in the narrow corridor.

“Oh, no, ma’am. She’s right awful, that witch. Set a factory on fire, not long ago. Everyone lost their jobs because of it. Whole slew of unemployment now.”

“Did anyone get hurt?”

“Well… I mean, I suppose they were warned. A few people got hurt, yeah, but nothing terribly serious. Still, they’ve got mouths to feed and no way to feed ‘em. Then she goes and does all sorts of horrible things with her magic. I heard she even ensorcelled her own sister,” the guard said, voice dropping into a hushed whisper. “Burned her legs right terribly, she did. It’s why the poor girl always wears long stockings.”

Glinda gave them a tight, sharp smile.

“Did you know she used to be in a wheelchair?”

The guard stared back at her, raising their brows.

“…Used to be? She still is, miss. That’s what’s so horrible about it.”

Her smile slipped from her face, and she looked away, brow furrowing. No; Nessa should be walking. Elphaba had enchanted her shoes—she said herself that Nessa was up and walking before she left.

Maybe Glinda wasn’t the only liar in Oz, after all.

“My mistake,” she muttered as they finally reached the landing together. “It’s been a long month.”

The guard gave her a sympathetic nod, then escorted her toward the massive doors that closed the palace off from the congregated rabble of the Emerald City. Other guards stood in parade display, perfectly arrayed in razor-sharp lines as Glinda and her escort maneuvered between them to stand just behind the entryway.

“Madame Morrible is outside now, getting everyone ready for your arrival. As soon as the clock hits noon, I’ll hand you off to her, and you’ll take everything from there.” They paused a moment, then gave Glinda a small smile. “You nervous at all?”

Nervous? She looked down at her clenched hands as they trembled at her sides, finally noticing the way her heart raced and her stomach churned.

“Yes,” she whispered, swallowing the lump that had lodged itself in her throat.

The guard patted her elbow, smile broadening as they looked at her with kind eyes.

“Don’t be. You’re a natural, I can already tell. Just give everyone a nice, big smile as soon as you step out, and they’ll be eating right out of your hands. They’re ready to love you. You just have to give ‘em the chance.”

Their words struck her even through her nervous fog. She nodded, more to herself than anything; the people wanted to love her. They wanted good news after a month of terror and tribulations. They were good people—Elphaba had just been too aggressive, too hard on them in her relentless campaign to smear the Wizard and save the Animals.

All she had to do was remind them that there was still hope.

“It’s Lim, by the way.”

“Hm? What?”

The guard beamed at her, straightening up their dress jacket as a sudden roar rose up from the crowd outside.

“My name. Lim. Nice to meet you.”

Glinda smiled her first genuine smile in what felt like ages as the doors swung open to the thunderous applause of what must have been the entire populace of the Emerald City. She blinked rapidly against the brilliant light of the noontime sun as she carefully stepped over the threshold and walked toward Madame Morrible, who stood with an outstretched hand on a sort of makeshift dais before the crowd. The old woman smiled down on her like an indulgent grandmother, though there was something hard in her eyes that made Glinda’s skin crawl. As she looked up at Morrible, the woman gestured subtly toward the crowd with her chin and raised her brows in expectation.

Glinda took the hint; as a budding socialite, that had been the first necessary skill to develop in order to prevent herself from drowning in the sea of societal demands. She turned toward the crowd, beaming her smile brighter than ever, and offered them a shy little wave—and they, in turn, went absolutely wild. People screamed her name and shouted words of encouragement and love from every corner of the open square, from the well-to-do elite in their fabulous emerald clothing to the paupers that lifted their hands at the back of the crowd, desperate to see and be seen. She could have sworn, just for a minute, that she saw some of the girls from Shiz gathered together in the crowd, waving frantically up at her.

It was intoxicating. Love washed over her from all of Oz as she took the stand next to Madame Morrible, and she closed her eyes for just a moment to soak it all in, committing every sight, sound, and smell to memory. She had finally gotten everything she had ever wanted—well. Almost.

Madame Morrible raised her hands for silence, and the noise of the crowd finally subsided to a low murmur as the people of the Emerald City looked expectantly toward the two of them. Morrible glanced at Glinda, a silent reminder to play along, before unrolling the parchment she had carried with her.

“Miss Glinda, we are so very happy to have you present with us; truly, we are,” she began, and the crowd threw up another little cheer before falling back into silence once more. “As the Wizard’s Press Secretary, I have done all that I could to spread the word of your braverism all across Oz. It has not been easy on such short notice, but it is a task I have taken to heart. After all, it is not every day that someone escapes the clutches of that hideous witch and lives to tell the tale!”

The audience cheered once more, even as Glinda flinched at the words, her smile faltering. Before long, the cheers had turned into shouts of fear and desperation, people talking rapidly over one another as Morrible temporarily lost her grip on them all. Glinda heard snatches of their words here and there— _Every day, more wicked! Defaming our poor Wizard, lying to everyone! Someone must save us! Where will she strike next?_ —and, with each new phrase, her heart sank deeper into the pit of her stomach. It had only been a month; how hard had the Wizard and Morrible been working to turn Elphaba into some great green villain?

The people _hated_ her.

“Fellow Ozians,” Glinda cried out, raising her hands and beaming her smile at them once more. Finally, the wild murmuring subsided as all eyes turned back toward her. She cleared her throat, suddenly feeling like an insect specimen pinned and wriggling on the wall. Nothing she said would clear Elphaba’s name—yet. The best she could hope for was to distract them from their fears.

“As… terrifying as terror is,” she began, briefly shaking her head at herself for the stupidity of her words, “why don’t we set aside our panic for this one day—and celebrate!”

There was a brief moment of hesitation, a pregnant pause as Morrible examined her from the corner of her eye—and then the crowd erupted once more, their anger and fear forgotten in an instant.

“Yes, indeed,” Morrible cried out, her orator’s voice carrying over the madness like a ship cutting over the wide expanse of the tumultuous ocean, “let us celebrate the return of one of our own!”

She paused, then turned to Glinda, clearing her throat as the crowd leaned forward in hushed curiosity. With a sly wink, the old woman continued: “Glinda, the day you were first summoned to an audience with Oz, you may not have known why initially—but when you bowed before his throne, he decreed you’d hence be known as Glinda the Good, officially! Then, with a jealous _squeal_ , the Wicked Witch burst from concealment, where she had been lurking surreptitiously…”

Glinda blinked at her, her mouth dropping open slightly in spite of her best efforts to maintain the façade. That wasn’t what happened—that wasn’t what happened at _all_. They had gone together; they had been _friends_. It was all Elphaba’s idea in the first place, so clearly, she hadn’t been hiding. The Wizard hadn’t even brought up this Glinda the Good nonsense until… until last night.

Or had he? Just how long had he been planning this? The people chattered again, whipped into a frenzy by Morrible’s expert rhetoric, and her attention was yanked back toward them as soon as their wild speculations reached her ears.

“I hear she has an extra eye that always remains awake!”

“I hear that she can shed her skin as easily as a snake!”

“I hear some rebel Animals are giving her food and shelter!”

“I hear her soul is so unclean, pure water can melt her!”

Glinda stared out at the crowd, flabbergasted. And yet… were these not like all the rumors that had gone flying around the girls’ dormitories in Shiz, during late-night gab sessions? _Oh, she’s vile! Just like a reptile, with that skin of hers…_

She did her best to hide her frown, carefully clasping her hands in front of her and casting her eyes to the ground as Morrible did nothing to dissuade the crowd from their wild ramblings and their vociferous petitions for someone to go and _melt_ Elphaba with water. For a moment, Glinda closed her eyes, taking a long, deep breath. She had gotten almost everything she had wanted from the get-go—the love and adulation of the populace, a position that allowed her all the attention she had always desired, the chance to really make a difference… But it was a hollow victory. For as much as she was irritated with Elphaba, she certainly didn’t want her to be murdered by these rabble-rousers.

How had she ended up here? How many mistakes had she made to lead her down this road?

“And, Miss Glinda, may I ask—how do you feel?”

Morrible’s voice rang out, loud and clear, and startled Glinda from her reverie. A tear traced its way down her cheek, and she brought a hand up to wipe it away as she sucked in another trembling breath. As she turned toward the crowd, she forced a faltering smile on her lips as they all stared up at her, prepared to hang on her every word.

She had to make it count. She had to play her cards right.

“I… couldn’t be happier,” she said, clearing her throat. “No, I couldn’t be happier. Though it is, I admit, the tiniest bit unlike I anticipated.” She cast her gaze around the crowd, looking for a familiar black hat or the quickest flash of verdant green skin—but she saw nothing. Perhaps that was for the best; Elphaba wasn’t safe here. At this rate, she wouldn’t be safe anywhere.

“Getting your dreams… it’s strange, but it seems a little, well… complicated. There’s a kind of a sort of cost; there’s a couple of things get lost—there are bridges you cross you didn’t know you crossed until you’ve crossed. And if that joy, that thrill, doesn’t thrill like you think it will…" She trailed off for a moment, suddenly becoming aware of the weight of Morrible's eyes on her. She cleared her throat, forcing away the lump that had formed there; she coudn't afford to make a mess of things again. Not here. Not now.

"Still. With this perfect finale, the cheers and the ballyhoo, who couldn’t be happier?” She beamed her smile at the crowd again, taking a step forward and stretching her arms out toward them as if embracing them. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Morrible's lips twist into a self-satisfied smile.

“So, I couldn’t be happier! Because happy is what happens when all your dreams come true,” she said, gesturing to the crowd. “Well? Isn’t it?”

They cheered in response, hooting and hollering and whistling as they all pressed themselves in closer to her. As if in victory, she threw her arms up and did a little twirl, perfectly practiced and perfectly captivating as they lost themselves in the spectacle of her.

“Happy is what happens when your dreams come true!”

“ _We love you, Glinda!”_

“Thank goodness,” she shouted in response, letting out a bubbly laugh even as her heart threatened to break.

The celebration lasted what felt like forever; by the time Glinda was finally permitted to return to her plush prison chamber complete with a full commendation from Madame Morrible, her feet throbbed to the tune of her aching heart, and her smile refused to come no matter how hard she summoned it. As she let herself sink onto the sprawling expanse of the bed, she stared up at the ceiling, idly replaying everything over again in her tired mind.

_Thank goodness_ , she thought, letting out a joyless little laugh. _Happy is what happens when all your dreams come true!_ The laugh escalated, ramping up to a fever pitch as she covered her eyes by draping an arm over her face. _I couldn’t be happier!_ Before long, she couldn’t decide if she were laughing or crying, tears streaming down her face as she howled like a wild animal in her delirium, swathed in a cage of plush, delicious velvet.

_Oh, Elphie. If only you could see me now. I’m exactly as miserable as I’ve always deserved to be_ , she thought, finally calming her tears and waving away her guard—Lim—when they poked their head in to check on her, eyes wide and frightened. _And it’s all because of you. All of it. How am I supposed to help you out of this mess you’ve made? Do you even understand what you’re up against?_

_Damn you, Elphaba. You have no idea what you’ve done._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I mean, I couldn't NOT address "Thank Goodness." That song is incredible, and there's just so much GOOD stuff in there. But also, this is the part where Glinda realizes maybe she's in a little over her head--and Elphaba's in so deep, even her pointy hat won't peek out of the hole she's digging for herself.
> 
> Thanks again for reading, and I love all of your kudos and comments more than I can say! Please do feel free to critique anything that doesn't work for you from here forward, as I love the concrit just as much as I love the compliments :D My goal is always to learn and to grow.
> 
> Hope you enjoy it, and have a wonderful week!


	7. All That Glitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being Glinda the Good is surprisingly difficult--and painful, especially as Madame Morrible continues to 'help' her master her magical abilities. Still, Glinda is doing her best to try and find ways to help Elphaba, though her friend grows increasingly elusive as time goes by. An idea comes to her from an unexpected place, but is it already too late? Will this even actually help? Or is she only making things worse?

Her honorary title carried a lot more work than she had anticipated; if she wasn’t visiting with the rich and powerful around Oz, she was giving speeches, attending pro-Wizard rallies, and hosting charity events for victims of the Wicked Witch and her evil minions. Most of her words had been scripted for her; every day, Morrible would hand her a packet of pre-written miscellanea for whatever events she had planned, and every day Glinda recited them until, after a few weeks of constantly rushing around and being pulled in every direction, she called them easily to memory.

She felt like a clockwork toy, a perfect porcelain doll with springs built in to keep her constantly bouncing on her toes and smiling prettily at anyone who happened to pass by. It all came so easily; smile, laugh, wave, make a witty little comment to the laughs and polite applause of those around you. All of Oz adored her. Her face was plastered in poster form all over the country, smiling benevolently upon the people and serving as a beacon of hope in these dark times.

The worst part, though, was the training. When she wasn't out selling what little was left of her soul in mindless rallies, Morrible was drilling her on every aspect of sorcery Glinda could imagine--and several more that she had never dreamed. It had started off well enough; she'd re-learned the foundations of magic, mastering her control over the basic skills she had begun to practice with Elphaba in the barn. Then, after an all-too-casual remark, a little snide confidence given to her irascible teacher after an 'easy' day of training, the gloves came off.

Morrible was an absolute master of the elements of wind and water. She could summon clouds in the confines of their training arena-slash-ballroom, then force them to rain. She could call up the winds with a gesture of her hands, turning an innocent rainstorm into a howling typhoon. And once--only once--she had lightning dance and crackle between her fingertips, only to strike Glinda with a thunderbolt that sent her streaking across the room and slamming into the wall with such force that she had to retire from the public eye for a little over a week.

“We made you, and we can _unmake_ you, my dear,” Morrible was fond of saying as she scraped Glinda off of the floor. “I almost feel sorry for you. A battle of sorcery is usually a battle of wits—and you, sadly, always come unarmed.”

The Wizard made it clear after that that no visible injuries would be permitted during the training, but Madame Morrible was nothing if not creative. By about their third post-injury session, Glinda had learned that it was far better to keep all of her screams bottled up inside, letting them fuel the quiet rage that simmered in the pit of her stomach. She smiled through the pain, and Morrible praised her with sickly-sweet words—though the iron glint never left her eyes.

In all the time she had been working for the Wizard, however, she had not seen hide nor hair of Elphaba. True, there were still raids—the Animal Liberation Front operated on their own clockwork mechanisms, lashing out at those that would keep Animals suppressed in any capacity—but reports of Elphaba’s involvement were increasingly vague, and so it was difficult for Glinda to decide exactly how to run her counter-smear campaign. Sometimes, witnesses claimed that they had seen a flash of a pointed hat and a flicker of green in a sea of black; others swore that they saw her swooping in on a broomstick before disappearing in a cloud of sickly smoke. It was all hearsay, and nothing had been confirmed. All Glinda could do was downplay the rumors, chuckle politely at the parties, and quietly slip what little assistance she could through the pipeline to the Animals that needed it most—but that in itself grew more impossible the more she found herself wrapped in the petty politics and gilded finery of the Emerald City.

The Wizard took it all in stride; for each new act of rebellion, he placed Glinda in the perfect position to draw attention and inspire the masses—his white queen against Elphaba’s black in their endless game of chess. Still, she could tell that he was getting frustrated. Their meetings grew shorter each time, and he looked increasingly disheveled as days, then weeks, then nearly two months had gone by with no clear report of the Witch or her movements.

Glinda stood in front of him as he restlessly paced the floor of his private room, scowling down at the latest newspaper account. She watched him in silence, her face an impassive, smiling mask made perfect from years of practice. Finally, he drew in a deep breath and looked at her with a tight, tense smile.

“We’ve been playing this game a little too long for my liking,” he said. “How difficult could it _possibly_ be to catch a girl with green skin, for crying out loud? It’s not like she blends into the crowd.”

He swiped the paper off his table like a petulant child, watching as it fluttered to the floor.

“I even hired that Fiyero character to the Guard—on _your_ recommendation, I might add,” he continued, jabbing an accusatory finger in her direction. “Have we gotten any results from it? No. Less than nothing. Vague accounts and misinformation flying in all directions.”

She nodded, looking somewhere in the middle distance over his left shoulder rather than meet his eyes directly. After the graduation ceremony at Shiz, she had gotten in touch with Fiyero and encouraged him to apply to the Guard. He liked Elphaba well enough; he and Lim together had helped keep the other guards in check, ensuring that Elphaba would always have time to slip away any time she had been spotted in the area. Fiyero had been disgusted with her, at first. Thankfully, he was committed to protecting Elphaba—which seemed a little strange to her, really. She had never thought they were that close. And of course, she couldn’t tell him what all she was trying to do, not when her plans were as tentative and delicate as they presently were.

“We need to step up our strategy,” the Wizard finally said, drawing her out of her thoughts as he moved toward her and gently took her hands. “You’ve been doing wonderful work out there, Miss Upland. The people adore you. Your shining visage is all that holds them together, some days.”

Glinda shifted her gaze to meet his eyes, squinting slightly.

“You have that magnetism about you. You can draw her out.”

A grimace flickered across her face before she could hide it.

“How? I’ve been to every event we could think of,” she said, shaking her head slightly. “Charities. Public speeches. Dinners. Galas. Balls. I even put in a token appearance at that one wedding.”

“This time, you’ll be on the front lines. We’re going to plant a choice target for a raid—one they won’t be able to resist. And it will just so happen that you will be there, doing whatever it is you do on your little adventures around Oz.”

She stared at him, her blood turning to ice.

“What?”

“Oh, yes. Let’s see… what do you think she’d go for? She had a proclivity for goats, if I remember right. You think she’d be interested in cattle? Horses? I can get some of those, I’m sure. We’ll make another nice little facility, and you can tell everyone just how safe and effective it is to lean on animal labor for our economy to blossom.”

“That’s not…” she began, shaking her head. “Animals aren’t tools. They’re people.”

“Ha! Oh, she got her claws in deep, didn’t she? Animals are _not_ people, Glinda. They’re animals. Humankind has always been the dominant species, and we’ll continue to be long after all of these creatures have stopped pretending to be more than they are,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her. “Don’t forget whose side you’re on, Miss Upland. The Wizard may giveth, but he also taketh away.”

Glinda frowned at him, drawing in a shaky breath before nodding slowly. Maybe he was right about one thing, at least; maybe Elphie really would show up, and then… and then… Well. She’d figure it out when she got there. Sometimes, a girl just had to improvise.

“…All right. Where do you want me to go?”

“Oh, nowhere tonight. We’ll get everything set up and squared away. For now, you’ll get to enjoy a few days of well-earned rest in your room. I trust everything is to your liking?”

She nodded again, feeling her heart sink. A few _days—_ she was going to be stuck in her room for _days_ , completely shut out from the world. Her body recognized it as the blessing it was, as she had not been afforded much rest since becoming Glinda the Good, but her heart and mind agreed that this was precisely the opposite of what she wanted.

She had to warn Fiyero. Or Lim. Either of them could help make sure the lazier guards were on the rotation, or could mitigate some of the damage, or something. Anything. She just needed to know that Elphaba would have people on her side when push came to shove.

The Wizard dismissed her promptly, inviting a guard to return her to her room—but when the guard arrived, Glinda realized that it was not Lim that walked with her. She didn’t know this man, with his heavy grey brows and mustache.

“Come with me, miss,” he said, his voice low and gruff.

She walked with him toward the staircase and then, when they were safely out of the Wizard’s earshot, she turned to examine him a little more closely.

“Where is Lim?”

“On leave for the next week or so. Family issue or something. Come along, please.”

For a moment, she froze in place. The Wizard knew—he _must_ have known what she would do, provided the opportunity, and he’d immediately outplayed her. There was no feasible reason for her to reach out to Fiyero, and she severely doubted this old man would be willing to involve himself in anything that didn’t directly concern him. Finally, she gave the guard a tired smile and allowed him to escort her back up to her room.

She stood in the center of it all for a moment, listening to the tumblers turning in the lock before the guard’s heavy footsteps faded away down the stairwell. Then, she let out a long, deep sigh and crossed the room before allowing herself to slowly sink down onto the bed.

_Well. Nothing to do but wait, I guess_ , she thought, raising an arm and flicking her wrist. Her little starlight wisp fizzled into existence immediately afterward, gently orbiting around her as she let her arm sink back down into the plush fabrics of the bed.

Regardless of the brutality of her training, she had learned to master what once seemed impossible simply out of sheer necessity, and some small part of her was grudgingly grateful to the old hag for it. Because of Morrible's own talent for weather magic, Glinda, too, had acquired a taste for controlling the natural elements of wind and water. She had learned to summon bubbles large enough to float her entire body, pushed along on the currents of breezes she called to blow her wherever she needed to be. She could call up a rain shower for a drought-stricken field, whistle for winds to blow cool air and storms their way, raise her arms to invite the sun to shine and pierce through heavy black clouds…

She wondered what Elphaba would think. Would she be proud of her progress? Or would she see her merely as the traitor she had been painted to be, her smiling face serving as the convenient vehicle for the Wizard’s desire for obedience?

Madame Morrible came to visit her the second day of her isolation.

“Ah, my dear. Looking lovely as usual,” the old woman said, giving Glinda a too-wide smile as she moved to sit down in one of the chairs that had been set by a small table near the window. She had set a teakettle over on the countertop when she had first come in, and it bubbled away as she settled herself on the too-narrow chair. “How are you enjoying this brief moment of peace between public appearances?”

“It’s been all right,” Glinda replied, moving to sit across from her even as her heart performed sickly, lurching jumping-jacks at the woman's presence on instinct. “I miss being out there with the people, but I know it’s all part of the Wizard’s plan.”

“Of course. The Wizard has a plan for us all, Glinda, dear, and we must needs play our parts. Now, then—have you been practicing in between our little exercises? Keeping up with your studies of the magical arts?”

Glinda nodded stiffly. She summoned a bubble to carry the whistling teapot from off its stand in the fireplace over to the table where the two of them sat. Thankfully, Madame Morrible watched with approval, nodding slowly as the bubble popped the moment the teapot had settled into place.

“Well done. You’ve come a long way toward controlling your gifts,” she said, picking up the teapot to pour herself a cup of the steaming liquid. “That Witch may have had some natural talent, but I daresay you may surpass her one day in mastery and application—with my help, naturally.”

“Naturally,” Glinda replied, forcing a smile onto her face as her ribs ached with the bruises from their last exercise. She had initially thought she'd cracked them, but the doctor had pronounced them 'right as rain.' An ironic word choice, which she was certain was purposeful by the little glint in his eye.

“It’s a shame,” Morrible continued, letting out a deep sigh as she stirred sugar into her tea. “That girl had so much potential. We could have used her. But then she got those ridiculous ideas into her head…” She trailed off a moment and then shook her head, looking up at Glinda. “It’s probably too late, of course, but I wonder if there was anyone who could have talked her out of it. From what I saw at Shiz, she didn’t seem to make friends easily.”

Glinda shrugged with a small frown, pouring herself a cup of tea and staring into it for a moment. Much as she hated Morrible, her tongue betrayed her; she hadn't had anyone to actually talk to in days.

“She was… different. Too different for most people. We eventually learned to get along, living together like we did. I think she was truly only close to her sister and their old nanny, and even then, she and Nessa didn’t always see eye to eye,” she said, spooning sugar into her tea.

“Ah, yes; the Eminent Thropp’s daughter. Or, well, I should say the Eminent Thropp herself, now. Poor girl’s father died of shame. She took the title, oh… a week ago, perhaps,” Morrible replied, nodding to herself.

Glinda blinked at her, nearly spilling her tea as her hand jerked the spoon against the rim while stirring.

“What?”

“Oh—you hadn’t heard? Well, I suppose you have been rather busy. Yes, Nessarose has taken her father’s mantle. She’s still transitioning, but I hear she’s already begun to make changes in the governance of Munchkinland.”

“I… I see,” Glinda murmured, taking a deep sip of her tea. It was floral and bright, with something thick like honey that coated her tongue as she drank.

“Yes… I do wish she had been able to talk some sense into her sister. She always was the more reasonable of the two. Had a different perspective, no doubt, being stuck in that chair as she was. Not one for sorcery, though. Unionists have no appreciation of the arts, truly.”

“Maybe… maybe Nessa could still convince Elphaba to turn herself in? Elphaba did everything for Nessa when they were younger,” Glinda said, more to herself than anything—though she found herself wondering, the moment the words were out of her mouth, why she was speaking them out loud. “If we reached out to the Eminent Thropp, surely having Munchkinland’s support in capturing the Witch wouldn’t be a bad thing?”

Morrible nodded slowly; it looked as though she may have been actually considering the idea. After a long moment, she took a long sip of her tea, downing the entire thing in one gulp before setting down the empty cup and smiling at Glinda.

“Not a terrible idea at all. You truly are learning. Alas, I must be off; I’ve been booked quite solid in your absence, I’m afraid,” she said, slowly rising from the chair and straightening herself up. “We will be in touch shortly, I’m sure. In the meantime, do keep practicing your sorcery.”

“Oh—yes, of course,” Glinda said, her heart threatening to leap out of her throat. Was Morrible actually going to bring up her idea to the Wizard? If so, maybe there was still a chance that Elphaba could be saved; maybe Nessa really could talk some sense into her. If nothing else, Nessa could step in with her new title and… do _something_ for her sister. Political immunity, maybe. Or at least a trial in Munchkinland rather than the Emerald City.

Morrible let herself out, and Glinda let out a shaky little laugh. She had done it; finally, after ages of being jerked around like a marionette on strings, she had managed to do something that might actually help Elphaba.

She only hoped it wasn’t too late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COVID-19 has me stuck at home, where I am woefully forced to write, play video games, and shift my actual work to all online for the foreseeable future. (That was sarcasm; I'm doing fine, and I'm enjoying the break--though I hate that it came at this kind of cost.)
> 
> I hope all of you are practicing good health hygiene and keeping your social distance! Stay safe out there. If my little fic helps any of you get through these trying times, then I have done my job well.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week!


	8. Blow Wind;Come Wrack

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Glinda realizes she has made a great number of mistakes when a tornado drops what appears to be a farmhouse into the middle of Munchkinland. Elphaba and Glinda meet again under unfortunate circumstances, and Glinda learns a little too much about one of Madame Morrible's secret projects.

Almost two weeks later, after the tornado, Glinda was the first on the scene. The carnage was unbelievable; half of a small district of  Munchkinland had been completely ravaged by the wind. Trees lay uprooted as if an enormous child had pulled them up for playthings, and debris covered at least a solid mile of land.

Well—she hadn’t _ technically _ been first on the scene. The first person, really, was the person who lived in the house that had come tumbling out of the sky. Glinda had stared at the young girl who stood there, her winning smile faltering as she tried to process what on earth was going on.

Her name was Dorothy, she said, and she was from some ridiculous-sounding place known as ‘Kansas.’ Glinda had never heard of it; the little girl was either a liar or a little bit simple--or, possibly, severely traumatized from being flung out of the sky and crushing the unsuspecting woman below. Judging by the way she clutched onto her little dog, Glinda rather suspected the latter. She was clearly a bit shaken by her sudden entry into  Munchkinland , and Glinda couldn’t be too terribly mad at her, despite the carnage—she was just a child, after all. So, Glinda did the best thing she could; she told the girl to follow the yellow brick road to the Emerald City, where the Wizard could figure out what he wanted to do with her. If nothing else, he and  Morrible could at least figure out how to get her back home, where she belonged.

Had Glinda realized the girl had outright  _ stolen _ the shoes right off of  Nessarose’s corpse, she may have taken a sterner approach. As it was, Glinda found herself crouching beside a pair of sock-footed legs that stuck out at odd angles from beneath the house, feeling sick to her stomach.

Nessa was dead. She remembered snippets of their time together in  Shiz , watching the way she fawned over that one Munchkin boy and always attended so seriously to her studies. There had been so much of Elphaba in her—and maybe that’s why the two of them so often butted heads. They were too much alike.

It was kind of funny, in hindsight, how much Glinda wished they had been able to spend more time together now that she was gone. When Nessa was alive, she'd been nothing more than an afterthought--just some unfortunate extra swept up into the cinematic chaos that was Elphaba's life.

“Oh, Nessa,” she whispered, shaking her head as she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. “I’m so sorry.”

“You should be,” a familiar voice answered.

Glinda jerked up her head, reeling away from the ruined house and what was left of  Nessarose . Only a few feet away, with the ramshackle remnants of the house between them, stood none other than the Wicked Witch herself.

She seemed somehow taller than Glinda remembered, and a little more hollow--but other than that, very little had changed. From head to toe, she still swathed herself in black, her trademark pointed hat still perched atop her head. In one hand, she clutched her broomstick whie the opposite arm wrapped protectively around the enormous grimmerie.

“… Elphie ?” 

“I didn’t want to believe the rumors,” Elphaba began, her body tense and rigid as she glared at Glinda across the expanse. “But it looks like they’re true. You’re just another of the Wizard’s tools.”

“ Elphie , that’s not—”

“My sister is dead. Can I just… can I just have a minute?”

Glinda frowned, slowly nodding as she took several steps backward. The guards would be arriving soon; she had outpaced them, calling up as fierce a wind as she could to race her bubble ahead of them, but her advantage wouldn’t last for much longer. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many questions she needed to ask--but she couldn't deny Elphaba the right to mourn her sister, even though time was bearing relentlessly down upon them.

Elphaba slowly approached the house, crouching down where Nessa’s legs stuck out from the wreckage. She drew in a deep breath, then shook her head as she bent lower.

“Nessa… I’m so sorry. Please forgive me. Please. I know I ruined everything for you, but I never…”

Her voice trailed off, and all Glinda wanted was to rush up and embrace her—but the space between them suddenly felt impassable, as if it were some vast and dangerous chasm.

“ Elphie , you can’t blame yourself,” she finally said, clearing her throat. “It was an accident.”

Elphaba let out a short, joyless laugh and stood again, gesturing to the house.

“You think this was an accident? You think cyclones just appear out of nowhere, dropping strange houses on prominent politicians?”

“I… I don’t know, I’ve never—”

“Of course you  _ never _ . You’re too busy telling everyone how  _ wonderful _ everything is.”

“Look, it’s not like I have a choice,” Glinda snapped. “We all have our parts to play, and this is mine now. Elphaba, I’ve been  _ trying _ to help you—”

“ _ Help _ me? Oh, is that what this is? Stabbing me in the back the moment I take you to the Emerald City with me? Running right to the Wizard and letting him use you to try and get to me? _ That’s _ helping?”

“That’s not what hap—”

“Have you been  _ helping _ by plastering your face all over Oz? Telling everyone to just ignore all the problems right under their noses so that they can attend more of your  charity events  for the unfortunate victims of  witch attacks ? ” Elphaba continued, stalking toward her as her dark eyes flashed. “Or maybe you  _ helped _ by turning all of our friends against me, too. I suppose Fiyero became Captain of the Guard by pure happenstance. Come on, Glinda.”

Her face heated as if she were walking through the middle of a blazing desert. She wanted to scream—wanted to cry—as she approached her former best friend. The closer she got, the more she found herself unable to decide whether she wanted to hit her or hug her.

“ Elphie , you don’t understand.”

“But I mean, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? Get your little boyfriend to come and work for the Wizard, maybe then you can pretend like your hands are clean.”

Glinda finally settled on a single emotion, even as the others continued to war within her. She took one step closer to her friend and raised her hand to slap her across the face, rage seething out of her as tears welled in her eyes.

Elphaba froze, staring at her for a long moment as Glinda drew in deep, heaving breaths, trying to master herself. Then, the witch threw her head back and let out a loud, high cackle.

“Feel better?”

Glinda glared at her, then slowly let her shoulders slump.

“No. Elphaba, I’m—”

“Miss Glinda!”

Elphaba’s head jerked as the guards finally caught up to them. She took a halting step backward, her broom still tight in her fingers, and looked to Glinda with betrayal written across her face.

“Halt! In the name of the Wizard!”

“…You set me up,” Elphaba said, her voice nearly a whisper as she looked at Glinda. “I can’t believe you would sink this low. You used my sister’s death to trap me?”

Glinda shook her head, her eyes wide.

“No!  Elphie , this isn’t what I wanted. I never wanted this. I was only trying to...”

The guards had their weapons raised. Elphaba simply stood stock-still, her head shaking slightly as her eyes remained locked on Glinda’s own. Time seemed to slow, just as it had that day that she had made the choice to go with Elphaba. Her heart beat like the ticking of a great clock, and she knew she was being offered another choice—another twist in the path she had already ruined.

She had to do something. If she didn’t, Elphaba was as good as dead. Keeping her eyes firmly on Elphaba’s, she twitched her fingers, transferring all of her nervous energy to the world around her. A wind roared in, whipping around the guards and tossing dust and debris everywhere. The guards abandoned their weapons to protect their faces from the sudden gale, hollering and coiling in on themselves as they shouted about the Wicked Witch casting a spell on them all.

But Glinda hardly registered them. All she could see was the sharp widening of Elphaba’s eyes, a horrific recognition growing where there had once been confusion. Glinda blinked, shaking her head slightly as the wind continued to harry the guards. She took a step forward, and Elphaba immediately recoiled.

“Elphaba, no, I didn’t—it’s not what you think!”

She watched helplessly as her friend walked away, then launched herself into the air on her broomstick. The wind howled like a wounded animal, drowning her voice as she screamed her throat raw. Then, all at once, the wild storm dissipated as she closed her eyes tight and forced everything back down, her shoulders shaking with the effort.

After a moment, the guards moved up to join her, dusting off their uniforms and casting nervous gazes at their surroundings—as if anticipating that the Witch would come back any moment to finish what she had started.

“Miss Glinda? Are you all right? She didn’t hurt you, did she?”

Glinda opened her eyes and gave them a wry, twisting smile.

“No. Of course not,” she said, sparing a quick glance for her hands—the gloves she had worn were torn to pieces, shredded by the power that had left her in such a furious tumult. “I’m sorry that she got away.”

The lies came so easily now. All around her, the guards nodded, offering her sympathy and making bold claims that, if they hadn’t been so worried about Glinda herself, they would have shot the Wicked Witch on sight. She ignored them. None of it mattered now. She had seen the hurt and the  hatred on Elphaba’s face right before she had taken off again.

She could only hope that meant Elphaba would finally abandon her crusade and keep herself out of harm’s way for once. Somehow, Glinda doubted that she would. But something she had said stuck with her:  _ You call this an accident _ _?_ No... of course it wasn't. Coincidences didn't exist in their world, not any longer. There was only one person Glinda knew who had mastered the art of weather magic, and that one person had everything to gain by killing Elphaba’s sister. And, of course, Glinda had delivered the idea to her on a silver platter like the fool she was, all because she hadn't learned not to trust a single thing that woman touched.

_ Morrible . _ Her smile grew wider, baring her teeth like a feral animal—but the guards only clustered in closer around her, checking to ensure she was all right before they began the long trek back to the Emerald City. She had played the good girl for long enough. She had stood by and allowed the world to grow worse each and every day. And now she was going to destroy them. 

Somehow, some way, she was going to make sure they suffered for everything they had done.

  


When she arrived back at the Emerald City, the guards split off to deliver their reports to their respective officers--all save for Lim, who followed her nervously as she stormed away from her quarters. When she arrived at the door to Morrible's room, Lim cleared their throat.   


"Miss Glinda... She's been very busy, lately. I don't know that you ought to—"

"I appreciate the concern, Lim. But I need you to be quiet and let me do this right now," she replied, rapping her knuckles on the door and glaring at the brass-adorned mahogany. There was a time she would have been terrified to be standing here, knowing what was waiting for her in this room and the large, open space just beyond it  Anger, however, rarely made room for fear. 

The door swung open to reveal Morrible sitting in a large wingback chair on the other side of the room, idly perusing a newspaper. She hardly even glanced up as Glinda entered the room, Lim hot on her heels.

"You," Glinda hissed. "How could you? I told you we should _meet_ with Nessa, not... not..."

"Careful before you start casually flinging accusations around, my dear," Morrible drawled in reply, reaching over to lift a cup of tea to her lips. "I just finished reading about that dreadful accident in Munchkinland. Terribly tragic. And now, all those poor people, left entirely without leadership."

She lifted one broad shoulder in a shrug, then turned those sharp grey eyes onto Glinda.

"I suppose the Wizard will have to sweep in and clean up their mess. All in due time, of course."

Glinda stared back at her, eyes wide and unblinking, as her stomach sank. Of course; everything Morrible did had a dual agenda. The woman was ten steps ahead of just about everyone in Oz.

Lim cleared their throat again, but Glinda paid them no mind. She raised a trembling hand, channeling all of her hatred down into her fingertips, and watched as a howling wind shoved everything off of Morrible's little coffee table.

"Really?" Morrible said, nonplussed. "Are you quite done with your little tantrum? Perhaps you'd like to be escorted back to your room, now?"

"I am not a _child_ ," Glinda said slowly, forcing each word out through clenched teeth. Energy crackled between her fingers, then shot out toward Morrible as a bolt of jagged lightning, aiming right for her shriveled, black heart.

With a casual wave of her hand, Morrible deflected the bolt, letting it slam into the opposite wall. A scorch mark blistered the pale wallpaper, and she let out a low snort as she raised herself out of her chair.

Glinda fired off another burst of energy, then another, hardly registering Lim as they backed away from the exchange as far as they could go. Each one, Morrible deflected--though Glinda could see the sweat beginning to bead on the old woman's brow. A wild wind whipped up around them, and it was impossible to say which one of them had called it. Before either of them fully realized it, they had become locked in a duel of wills, each one flinging spells and hissing words of power that shattered ceramics and upended furniture all over Morrible's personal quarters.

It was exhausting; training was difficult enough, but now neither of them was holding anything back. Every so often, one or the other would land a direct hit with a particularly vicious spell or be struck by a piece of floating debris, and blood dripped onto the thick, perfectly pristine white shag of the carpet beneath their feet. Soon, it became clear that the tides were turning. For once, Glinda was getting the upper hand. For all of Morrible's power, she had no stamina--and she did not have the bottomless well of rage driving her forward, finally released after years of being bottled up in Glinda's secret heart.

More guards had arrived, but Glinda was only dimly aware of them. Morrible, the great sorceress, was weakening. All she could imagine was turning the old woman into a red smear on the wall, or a charred mark on the carpet, and wind roared around her as it carried her intent.

Morrible stumbled, falling backward over an upturned ottoman, and Glinda bared her teeth in an animal sneer as she raised her hands for the killing blow.

She heard, even over the howling of the wind, a strange rattling sound—like metal clinking against metal. Confusion cut through the fog of her anger and pain, and the wind died down for a moment before suddenly winking out altogether as cold iron clamped around her wrist.

"Bind her," Morrible was crying, trying to right herself with the help of one of the guards. A rivulet of blood flowed down from a shallow cut in her forehead, and it only served to make her steely grey eyes that much more unnerving as she stared at Glinda.

A second  click  resounded through the room, and Glinda looked down at her hands to see that they had been shackled.

All at once, it felt as though the air had been sucked out of her lungs. She reached for her magic, but was met only with a horrible silence where there had once flowed the symphony of rain and wind. Panic bubbled up in her chest, and she stumbled backward into the arms of one of the guards as she stared stupidly at her bound wrists.

"What—what did you do?"

Morrible's lips twisted into a horrible smile.

"Saved you from yourself," the old woman replied, brushing herself off as the guards helped her to regain her balance. "You see, that's one of your greatest flaws, Glinda—you always focus on the wrong issue. It's incredible how easily misdirected you are, really."

Glinda shook her head, a strangely warm feeling of cold rushing through her veins.

"Yes, I've taught you much about one particular vein of magic, as was my duty as your professor. But any good sorceress knows better than to invest all of her time and energy into one field," Morrible continued, letting out a dry chuckle. "I've been working with the Wizard on a few new little inventions. Like those, for instance. Anti-magic shackles. After all, once we've arrested that Wicked Witch, it would do us terribly little good if she could just magic herself right back out of them, wouldn't it? Honestly, I should thank you—we haven't gotten much opportunity to test them, you see. You have the honor of being the first subject."

Glinda stared at her, struggling to draw in a deep enough breath. Everything felt  wrong \--like someone had cut her off from everything good and right that existed in the world, leaving her completely and utterly helpless. All of her senses were dulled; she was growing deaf and blind to the world around her by degrees.

"How does it feel?" Morrible asked, striding confidently closer despite the myriad wounds she had sustained in their little battle.

Of course, Glinda couldn't answer. Terror swallowed her whole.

"Hm. That's what I thought. I think, perhaps, you need a little time out. Maybe then we'll think twice before throwing ridiculous temper tantrums and harming people who truly only want what's best for you?" She paused a moment, then glanced to Lim as Glinda slowly sank to the floor, her trembling knees unable to hold her as she continued to reach for the memory of magic. "I think three days will be perfectly adequate. Feed her. Give her water. Make her comfortable. But the shackles stay on for three days."

_ Three days _ _?_ Glinda's heart stuttered in her chest, and she found herself thrashing blindly against Lim's gentle hands as they helped to lift her up. She opened her mouth to scream—but nothing came out save for a strangling wheeze as she clawed at the iron around her wrists.   


"Perhaps we should consider adjusting the parameters..." Morrible's voice floated to her as she was pulled away. No one made eye contact with her, even as she thrust her hands at them and pleaded, with wheezing gasps, to remove the chains.

Anything. She would have given  anything  to make it stop--to feel the comforting rush of her own magic, wrapping her back up into the flow of the world once more.  Anything  to end this forced isolation, separate from everything that ever lived. She was deposited gently onto her bed. She distantly felt the softness beneath her as her body curled up into itself on instinct, but thought was impossible. The silence that welled within her was all-consuming.

A single image broke through: a girl swathed in black, ever in mourning, kneeling over the striped socks that jutted out from uncomfortable angles beneath the wreckage of a fallen house.

"Elphie," she whispered, closing her eyes tight. "I'm so sorry. I'll be good. I'm sorry. I'll be good. I promise, I'll be good. Please just make it stop. Make it stop. Please."

The words left her in an endless rush, repeating over and over like water in a babbling brook, until, finally, consciousness left her altogether.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one is a little late! I realized I wanted to add another scene and do some touch-ups to this chapter, since it's the last chapter of Act I, and it took me awhile to get to where I was mostly happy with the revisions.
> 
> I always thought this scene was really weird in the musical; these two best friends reunite over a dead body (a dead sister, no less), and then start catfighting over their romantic entanglements with Fiyero??? I mean, don't get me wrong--it's a hilarious scene and generally well-played, but the more I got to thinking about it, the more I was just... yikes. Doesn't paint a very positive picture for anyone involved, really. So, I decided to change it up a bit, because I'm a fic writer and I do what I want!
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you also for all your kudos and lovely comments--I really do appreciate them more than I can say, even if I can't always respond to them right away!
> 
> Take care, and please stay safe out there in these crazy times.


	9. Thunder Roll and Lion's Roar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elphaba retreats from the scene of Glinda's betrayal, reflecting on everything that's gone wrong. An unexpected encounter in the deep woods during a storm gives her more to think about, but does nothing to soothe the relenteless bone-deep ache of her personal tragedy.

Elphaba pushed the broom as fast as she could make it go as she flew from Glinda’s betrayal, but she did not fly back to the barn that had served as her base for the past few months. She would be easily found there, now that she knew Glinda was working for the Wizard. As her hands trembled, white-knuckled, around the broomstick, she cursed her own stupidity; why had she ever thought that Glinda would want anything to do with her fight against the Wizard? What fool spirit had possessed her to imagine that the little debutante would ever willingly agree to give up her life in the lap of luxury for some Animals? For justice? For everything that was right? For  her ?

Still, as much as she tried to immerse herself in her self-righteous anger, it was a bone-deep sorrow that most threatened to consume her. All she could see in her mind’s eye was the way Glinda had looked at her that day—how brilliant and dazzling her smile had been as the two of them explored the Emerald City together.

Her heart twisted in her chest, and she felt the broom steadily losing altitude; she glanced down to see that she was descending over a field that bordered a deep, thick wood. It was as good a place as any to lose herself for a while. The broom half-dropped her onto the grass, and she landed hard, kicking up a cloud of dirt and overgrown grass as she rolled a bit before finally getting back to her feet. Storm clouds had begun to roll in overhead, no doubt in another half-baked scheme to try and force her out for the guards.

She shook her head, then made her way toward the woods. The trees were tall and strong, their canopies rich and thick with the green of summer leaves; they would shelter her enough from the storm, provided she could find a narrow corner to hunker down. She used the broom as a walking stick as she went, picking her way along the forest floor. Animals were known to hide in these woods, but she didn’t fear them; most of them knew her by reputation, if not by sight, and considered her a friend. Those that didn’t like her all clustered in cities and towns, embracing their own servitude out of fear.

She couldn’t blame them, not after everything she had seen. It was impossible to know who was friend and who was foe anymore.

And what about Nessa?

The thought shot through her like a bolt of lightning, setting every nerve aflame as she stopped dead in her tracks and sucked in a deep, shaking breath. Nessa was dead. Her sister, their father’s favored child, the sole center of their universe for many years, was gone—killed by someone she had once called friend. Now, she didn't even have anything to remember her by. Even those damned shoes were gone, stripped from her corpse before the body had even gone cold. No doubt the Wizard would be examining the enchantment she'd laid upon them.

She had only just seen her sister a couple of weeks ago, just as she was beginning to settle into her role of Eminent Thropp. Those shoes needed checking, and there was a chance—however slight—that Nessa would help her in her war against the Wizard. She hadn’t expected to see Boq there, and she certainly hadn’t expected her sister to be so deeply obsessed with him. She had thought it all some childhood phase, fueled by the quiet desperation of teenage hormones. How wrong she had been.

She never should have brought the Grimmerie with her. She never should have offered to help. Every time she tried to fix things, tried to make everything better, it always ended in disaster. Nessa fudged the spell, and Elphaba intervened—but Boq was not Boq anymore. He was hardly even a man, now. Her old friend's screams turned to the shrieking whistle of steam through metal as he became nothing more than a creature magicked to artificial life in a last-ditch attempt to save him from Nessa's foolishness.

She still remembered N essa denouncing her as she left, throwing the blame fully on her shoulders as she cried to the metal man that stood terrified in her private chambers.

Well. It didn’t really matter. She was dead, now. And Boq... well. Who knew what had become of him?

“Maybe it really was all my fault,” she whispered to herself, clenching her jaw before looking up sharply when the first drops of rain began to patter on the leaves overhead. Thunder rumbled in the distance, and she shook herself out of her thoughts to seek shelter before the clouds opened up overhead.

Not too far away, a massive, gnarled tree grew from a mossy outcropping of rock. Just beneath its twisted roots lay a narrow crevice—not quite a cave—sheltered by the rock and the tree itself. She scurried for the entrance just as the rain began to fall in earnest, pulling off her hat to squeeze herself in where the rain could not touch her.

As she shifted to pull herself further into the opening, her hand reached backward—and landed upon something surprisingly soft and warm that yielded to her touch. She blinked, jerking her hand away as a little yowl came from behind her.

“Hey! W-Watch it,” a voice growled. “This is my hiding place. Go get your own.”

She turned to look at who had spoken and raised her brows when she realized that it was a young Lion, just beginning to grow in his mane. He had squeezed himself in as far as he could possibly go, his surprisingly large frame uncomfortably cramped in the narrow space. Even in the dim evening light, she could see that he was trembling. When the lightning flashed and thunder clapped once more, he flinched and covered his face with his large paws.

“…Sorry,” she said , scooting toward the entrance as far as she could without exposing herself to the storm, “I didn’t realize anyone else was in here.”

He looked at her through the space between his paws, one amber eye gleaming in the dark.

“You’re… you’re that Wicked Witch, aren’t you?”

“That’s what they seem to be calling me, these days,” she said, shifting to dust off her hat.

The Lion’s eyes narrowed, and he let out an awkward little half-hearted growl.

“It’s y-your fault I’m like this.”

Elphaba paused, turning to look at the Lion with a quirked brow.

“My fault?”

“You—You took me out of that c-c-cage. You and that—that boy. I could’ve fought my way out. I could’ve learned to be b-brave. But you didn’t let me. Now I’m s-scared of  everything .”

“You were a cub,” Elphaba replied, shaking her head. “There was no way you could’ve gotten out of that cage on your own. Do you know what they were planning to do to you?”

For a long moment, the Lion fell silent. Then, he let out a low huffing noise and dropped his paws from his face.

“No. I don’t remember. But I remember you. And I know what people have been saying about you,” he said. “You’re… you’re a liar. And a fraud. You h-hurt people.” He bared his teeth, though his eyes were wide and fearful. “I won’t let you h-hurt me. If you try, I’ll… I’ll bite you.”

Elphaba regarded him in silence for a moment, then looked away and let out a bone-weary sigh.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone.”

He seemed to relax a little, though he still watched her with wary eyes. His claws flexed, digging into the dirt beneath his paws when the thunder cracked above them once more. The two of them sat together in a long, awkward silence as the rain poured down in heavy sheets, drenching the world around them as they remained relatively safe and dry.

“I’m glad to see you’re all right,” Elphaba said finally, turning to look at the Lion once more. “For a while, I was worried that they might have captured you again after Fiyero set you free.”

“I’m not all right,” the Lion complained. “You know what they all call me? The C-Cowardly Lion.”

“You’re still young. You’ll  grow out of it.”

“I won’t. I-I… I need to see the Wizard. They say he gives people a-all their dreams.”

She let out a joyless cackle and smiled at him, baring her teeth.

“Is that what they’re telling people? The Wizard wants you dead . ‘Animals should be seen, not heard.’ That’s what was scrawled across Dr. Dillamond’s board just a few days before they took him away. That’s what started this whole damned mess.”

The Lion stared at her, then  snorted softly like a disgruntled housecat . For a long time, he didn’t respond, simply tucking himself further into the little crevice and trembling as the storm raged on.

“Why are you h-here, anyway? Shouldn’t you be… s-setting something on fire or whatever?”

Elphaba grimaced, folding her arms over her chest as she leaned her back against the rocky wall of their hiding spot. She thought of Glinda—the way she had called up the same winds that had killed her sister—and bile rose in the back of her throat.

“…Because I’ve made a lot of mistakes,” she muttered, closing her eyes. “And because I put my trust in the wrong people.”

To her surprise, the Lion scoffed a mean little laugh.

“Of course no one would w-want to help s-someone like  you, ” he said, letting out a little growl. “Not so powerful, really, are you? You’re n-not scary at all. You’re just… just broken.”

She cracked open an eye to glare at him.

“Broken? You mean like  _ you _ ?”

He flattened his ears, pressing his chin down to the floor and letting out a mewling noise.

“…Yeah. I guess so ,” he said, looking up at her from under his heavy brows. He looked patently ridiculous; Elphaba let out a sigh and chuckled as she turned away from him.

“Well, to be fair, the whole world’s pretty broken at this point. We’re just ahead of the curve, really.”

He considered this a moment, then squinted at her.

“Why are you green, anyhow?”

“Born that way,” she said, holding out an arm and pulling back her sleeve to show him. He lifted his head, leaning forward just enough to delicately sniff at her before snorting and withdrawing once more. “Though I’m sure everyone’s saying it’s a side-effect of being a wicked witch.”

“That’s what I’ve always heard,” the Lion agreed. “Just proves how evil you are, being all… all funny-colored like that. Glinda the Good isn’t green. She’s fair and p-pure, like cream and honey.”

Elphaba’s heart twisted, and her hands clenched spasmodically into fists. The Lion took notice immediately, his fur standing on edge as he stared at her. Between them, the air grew tense—almost electric, as Elphaba’s emotions warred within her. The tiny crevice trembled, little rocks and clumps of dirt lifting and rolling as Elphaba took a deep breath, trying to rein in the power that so desperately wanted to be unleashed.

“Don’t… say that name,” she hissed through gritted teeth, glaring at the young Lion.

He pressed his ears back, shaking harder than he had even when he was nothing more than a caged cub.

“You _hate_ her,” he whispered. “So, it’s t-t-true. You really  are w-wicked.”

Elphaba said nothing, her gaze only darkening as he tried to make his large frame shrink into the darkness that surrounded them. 

“You want wicked?” She finally said after a long moment of silence, her jaw aching from the pressure she’d exerted. “How about calling someone your  best  friend and then stabbing them in the back the first chance you get? How about  killing someone’s  sister to lure them out of hiding, and then trying to attack them with the same wind you used to kill her? Because that's exactly what your precious  Glinda  did to me. ”

“You lie,” the Lion said, his words coming out in a trembling roar. “Glinda the Good would never harm anyone! She’s—she’s  good , and kind, and—and—and she helps all the people of Oz. Even Animals!”

Elphaba sneered at him, slamming her open hand on the ground and causing dirt and dust to fly up before hovering in midair, trembling with her own barely contained fury.

“If you believe that, you're even more foolish than I am,” she said, her shoulders finally slumping as all the little particles she’d raised fell to the ground with a soft, thumping clatter. Her rage burned away, leaving nothing but cold exhaustion in its place. She brought her hands up to rub at her face where tears threatened to fall.

The Lion remained silent and deathly still for a long moment, then slowly tilted his head and inched forward to get a better look at her. Elphaba dropped her hands to look back at him, leaning back against the wall of the crevice as her whole body started to ache.

“…She hurt you,” the Lion said at length, his heavy brows knitting together.

Elphaba only nodded, letting her eyes slide away from him. There was nothing inside, now; she felt as though she had been hollowed out. All the fire that had powered her through, driven her to stand up and fight, now lay extinguished—and not even ashes remained. The Lion moved forward a little more, then hesitantly lay his head in Elphaba’s lap.

She closed her eyes, sucking in a trembling breath as she carefully reached out and gently ran her fingers over the top of his head, taking what comfort she could in his surprisingly thick fur. The two of them remained like that—for how long, she could not say—as the storm continued to rage on outside. Every time the thunder clapped, the Lion flinched, and Elphaba found herself gently soothing the great beast. It reminded her of stormy summer nights spent with Nessa, curled up together as they waited out the clamor of the elements, and that only made the ache in her heart grow deeper.

“…I still th-think you’re  horrible ,” the Lion muttered just as she shook herself from the edge of slumber. Her lips twisted up in a wry, pained smile, and she gave him a little half-shrug as she made herself more comfortable.

“ Join the club,” she said. “I’m the founding member, president, and treasurer.”

The Lion rumbled something that might have been a laugh ; together, the two of them slowly fell asleep as the thunder died away, leaving only the sound of the driving rain that washed the horrors of the world away .

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took so long to get out! Me and my mental health have been at war since the beginning of this whole pandemic thing, but I'm finally starting to pull myself out of it again. It feels good to work on this, and I do hope it brings you a little bit of joy.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! As always, comments and kudos are loved more than I can possibly say, and constructive feedback is always appreciated.


	10. Wickedness Must be Punished

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elphaba tries to figure out her next steps in the unlikeliest of places, and she learns that the Wizard has gotten entirely too serious about removing her as a threat to his power in Oz. In desperation, she turns to old allies--but who would possibly harbor public enemy number one in the midst of this guerrilla war? When the world turns its back on you, perhaps it's time to turn your back on the world...

When the first rays of dawn filtered into the little cave, Elphaba blearily opened her eyes and groaned. Everything hurt; her spine ached as if she’d twisted it up into knots, her arms felt dull and heavy like they were made of lead, and she couldn’t feel her legs hardly at all. She looked down, furrowing her brow, and jumped slightly when she realized a rather large Lion’s head was laid across her knees—and he was sound asleep, his mouth hanging slightly open as he snored.

“Right,” she whispered to herself. “The Lion.”

After sitting there a few moments longer, she carefully squirmed her way out from beneath his heavy head so that she could massage the life back into her limbs. They woke with a furious burning of pins and needles, pain radiating through her entire body as she maneuvered herself to awkwardly stand and hobble out of the tiny cavern. The events of the previous day came crashing down around her once more, and she stood tenuously still for a moment before allowing everything to fade into the background. None of it mattered; the only thing that truly mattered was keeping up the fight. If the Wizard was trying this hard to dissuade her, it meant that she must have been making a difference. Someone, somewhere, believed in her—in the movement—and she had to strike that iron while it was still hot. If she didn’t, she risked having all her sacrifices be made in vain. Now wasn't the time to let her emotions drown her resolve; now was the time to double down, mustering all the power she had left to prove that she would not be beaten into silence.

Several minutes passed before she had her legs confidently beneath her once more. The ground had grown soft and muddy after last night’s driving rain, and she grimaced at the sound of her footsteps squelching on mud and moss alike as she moved away from the Lion’s little den. There was no point in waking him and trying to take him with her; he’d suffered enough at her hands already.

But where should she even begin? Where could she go that the Wizard wouldn’t already have a trap lying in wait? She thought for a long moment, leaning on her broomstick, and then blinked. A slow smile crept its way across her face, and she let out a low chuckle. Of course; the best place to hide was in plain sight.

|--0--|

She reached the Emerald City before evening since  it hadn’t been terribly far from where she had ended up the previous night. Her broom took her in low, skimming the cobblestones of an abandoned alleyway, before she stopped and tucked it away into a well-hidden corner to retrieve later. After pulling a few things from her satchel, she began  carefully snaking her way through the crowds in the heavy shawls she’d draped over herself to hide her green skin from any curious onlooker. Thankfully, she blended right in with the other slum-dwellers; all of them wore  patchwork clothing, some more like shambling piles of living cloth than human beings. 

Strangely, the spirits of everyone in the Emerald City seemed high, even those who were normally burdened by the weight of their own poverty.

As she wandered down the streets, looking for a place she could call a temporary shelter, it slowly dawned on her that many of the buildings she once recognized as friendly to the cause were now shuttered and boarded. A chill ran up her spine when she stopped in front of the stoop of one familiar house where a very old man had lived with his rather large Opossum companion, the two of them caring for one another in their senior years. The place stood empty, door hanging loosely on its hinges as though it had been kicked in. A thin layer of dust hung over what little was left inside that had not been destroyed or stolen. Neither man nor Opossum remained anywhere to be seen.

She stopped the next person she saw, awkwardly gesturing to the empty house from beneath the pile of rags that disguised her face.

“What… what happened to them?” She asked, pitching her voice lower and rougher than usual.

“Hm?” The young woman she had stopped squinted up at the house, her face twisting up in thought before her brows suddenly rose in recognition. “Oh! You mean th at old animal-lover that was helping the Wicked Witch ? Prison, of course, ” she said, smiling. “ Even without all that Witch business, i t was unnatural, it was. Living with a ratty old possum in your house like it was—like it was family or something ? Ugh.  Talk about b izarre. You know some people say they  knew each other? Like a husband and wife?”

It took every ounce of willpower Elphaba possessed to bite her tongue.

“…Oh. Used to give me scraps,” she said , drawing her shawls tighter around her shoulders.

“Eugh, gross! I wouldn’t eat anything he gave out, even if I was starving! Never know what animal-lover’s hands have been on, do you?”

Elphaba stared at the girl through the fabric that hid her away. The girl paused, standing awkwardly for a moment as the full weight of Elphaba’s anger fell over her. Then, she let out a high, nervous laugh and quickly scurried off, losing herself in the crowd as quickly as she could.

For a moment, Elphaba glared after her. Then, she sighed and looked back toward the house, clenching her jaw as her heart ached. That old man had done everything he could to help the rebellion; he had cooked for them, offered them what little clothing he could spare, hid them away in his deep cellars when they needed shelter from the guards… The Opossum hadn’t wanted to get involved. The two of them argued constantly, though the words were never harsh. They loved one another. Now, she only hoped the two of them had had the time to say their goodbyes before they'd been hauled off to the bowels of the Emerald City.

How many more people was the Wizard going to hurt because of her?

She allowed herself to melt back into the crowd, buoyed along in a living current of humanity as they flowed through little rivulets toward the Wizard’s high towers.  She lost track of time, drifting through the streets and ruminating on her mistakes; she must have wandered for hours, heedless of where her feet carried her.  When she realized precisely where she was being carried, it was too late for her to turn tail and run; the crowd had maneuvered her into the massive courtyard in front of the Wizard’s palace, where everyone gathered in murmuring expectation around a group of people in strange uniforms of black, silver, and red. When she leaned in to get a better look, she realized that the people were heavily armed—guns, swords, and all manner of other strange things hung from belts that sat on their hips and crossed their chests—and, to complete the dread picture that was forming in her mind, each one bore the emerald symbol of the Wizard, wreathed in a golden flame. 

“Aren’t they just splendid?” One woman said, fanning herself as she admired the group.

“Oh, yes. The best of the best, too, I’ve heard,” a man beside her replied, leaning on his cane. “Came from all over , just to help the Wizard and protect each and every one of us.”

Elphaba’s blood ran cold. She had to leave. She had to leave  now .

Before she could get more than a few paces back in the crowd, aiming to flee into the streets,  the trumpets sounded a clarion call that demanded silence from the gathered people of the Emerald City. The crowd pressed in tighter, faces curious and eager, and Elphaba found there was no room to squeeze between them in her attempt to escape. So, she carefully  turned and faced the little wooden platform that had been set out just behind the arrayed people in uniform—only to have a sudden wave of nausea wash over her.

Madame Morrible stood front and center, with Glinda to her right and  what looked to be a clockwork man made of iron or—or tin—to her left. She recognized the clockwork’s face immediately: his features were unmistakably the same as Boq’s had been, the hour of his transformation. So this is what the spell had done. Unintended consequences, perhaps, but at least she knew she had, indeed, saved his life.

She grew more surprised, however, when the tin man turned around and gestured for someone else to join them. A trembling Lion crept up onto the wooden platform on all fours, ears flat against his skull and amber eyes wide with terror.

“Of course,” she whispered to herself, feeling her heart sink. The Unnamed God must have been punishing her, today —t hough, really, she was fairly certain He had been punishing her all her life, ever since the moment she had first emerged from her mother’s womb with skin as green as frog-flesh.

Her eyes were drawn inexorably back to Glinda, however. She looked  radiant , her high-fashion outfit in brilliant greens and blues dazzling in the first burning rays of sunset—but there was a hollowness to her that Elphaba had never seen before. Her cheeks looked strangely gaunt, and the smile she wore plastered across her face rang more falsely than ever before. 

Betraying your friends and murdering their siblings must be such a difficult job , she seethed—though there was a small part of her, deep in the corners of her mind, that worried for her former friend and the haunted look in her eyes. Something didn’t quite add up, but she couldn’t put her finger on what. Honestly, she didn’t want to. It was easier to be angry.

“My dear fellow Ozians,” Madame Morrible cried, lifting her arms high to the cheers of the crowd. “We gather here today to introduce you to the Wizard’s newest weapon in our fight against the Witch’s terrible terror! May I present to you our newest protectors of the public peace, the Emerald City’s very own first official Witch Hunters!”

Elphaba grimaced, hunkering lower into the fabrics of her shawls. She felt as though they could see right through her; any moment, she would be spotted and taken straight to the gallows. The people had gone into a mad frenzy of shouting and screaming, demanding her death at the hands of these murderers in fine uniforms.

“Wickedness must be punished!” One of the people shouted, and soon others took up the chant. “Go and hunt her, and find her, and kill her! Kill the Witch!”

Her mouth felt like it was full of cotton. It was as if the entire crowd had suddenly been possessed by some bloodthirsty specter, desperate for war. What could she have possibly done to have an entire city—an entire country—hate her this much? All she had ever wanted was fairness. All she wanted was for Animals to have their rights returned, for everyone to live together as they apparently had in the olden days of Oz, long before the Wizard’s ascent.

But this couldn’t have just been the Wizard’s doing. For people to be frothing at the mouth like they were, screaming for the death of one woman as if it would solve all their problems, this line of thinking had gone on long before the Wizard finally enabled them to step out of the shadows.

Suddenly, Boq—or the man made of tin that had once been Boq—stepped forward, jabbing a metal finger into the air as he glowered at the crowd.

“And this is more than just a service to the Wizard,” he spat, his metallic face twisting with disgust and unbridled fury. “I have a personal score to settle with El…” He faltered, just for a moment,  before slamming his heavy hand down on the wooden railing that separated him from the crowd as he corrected himself: “With the Witch!”

_Oh, Boq. I did everything I could_ , she thought, slowly backing her way toward the edge of the crowd.  _ We were friends, once. Now you won’t even say my name. _

“It’s due to her I’m made of tin, her spell made this occur! And for once, I’m glad I’m heartless—I’ll be heartless killing her!”

She closed her eyes tight, freezing in place. Memories flickered through her head: late night study sessions, whispered confessions, two Munchkinlanders supporting one another through the strangely wealthy crowd that had accumulated at Shiz. He had been so small, so loyal, so cautious… and now he wanted her blood just as much as—if not more than—the rest of them did.

“And the Lion also has a grievance to repay,” the Tin Man continued, gesturing fiercely toward the cowering young lion as he stared with wild, rolling eyes at the crowd. “If she’d let him fight his own battles when he was young, he wouldn’t be a coward today!”

Elphaba shook her head. Everything she did only came back to haunt her, didn’t it? No matter how much she tried, she would never be free of other people’s burdens. The people shouted curses, flinging their hatred all over the courtyard as Madame Morrible called the first legion of Witch Hunters into action. They began to march, and the crowd parted for them like water. Elphaba moved with them, hunkering herself low into her fabrics and doing all that she could to project an aura of feeble helplessness as she hid within the sea of furious humanity.

She glanced up toward the stage and saw Glinda beaming a smile down on the crowd, joining her voice with theirs as they all wished the Witch Hunters well on their quest. For just a moment, their eyes met across the vast distance between them—and Glinda froze, her smile faltering just enough to let the light shine through the cracks in her armor.

Elphaba stared back at her as time seemed to slow all around them. An electric current seemed to surge through her chest, rooting her to the spot even as Glinda’s eyes widened, her golden curls bouncing as she subtly shook her head. All Elphaba could spy in her crystalline blue eyes was a fear nearly as palpable as that of the Lion not three feet away from her.

_ Go! _

For a moment, she thought she’d imagined it. It was the slightest movement, only a subtle drop of those bow-shaped lips—but then Glinda glanced away and jerked her head toward the outskirts of the crowd that was now beginning to disperse, and Elphaba had no choice but to be carried along with them, all murmuring hearty platitudes about the soon-to-be Ex-Witch.

|--0--|

She made her way to a familiar hideout she had used before, deep within the maze of the Emerald City slums. This particular building was only a radial headquarters of the Animal Liberation Front, but she knew that people gathered frequently under its unassuming ceiling to make plans and regroup after raids. How many times had she been here in the past year? At least ten. Maybe more. She remembered boisterous crowds always arguing over the next move, sharing meals together and cracking jokes to lighten the constantly tense atmosphere.

She hesitated for several long seconds, taking deep breaths to try and control her wild heartbeat. Then, she lifted her hand and fell into the complicated rhythm of the secret knock against the metal. Whatever noise there had been coming from within immediately died down, and before long a tiny grate slid open in the door for a pair of eyes to peer out of.

“No soliciting,” a gruff voice muttered, pointing with their eyes down toward a little sign that had been haphazardly taped to the door.

“I’m not a solicitor. I’m a freedom fighter,” she said, carefully drawing back her shawl to reveal a sliver of her green skin.

The man within let out a sharp curse and slammed the grate closed. Elphaba waited patiently for the door to open. Several seconds passed by. A minute. More.  She shifted uncomfortably in her spot, glancing around to make sure no one was watching her from any of the street corners.

This had never happened before. She had always been swiftly welcomed inside, generally with a hearty round of applause and a hot beverage.

Finally, the grate slid back open, and a second pair of eyes stared down at her.

“Elphaba?”

She recognized that voice. It was the local second-in-command, a young woman who had started life as a farmer out in Quadling country.

“Yes. Please, let me in.”

The eyes closed for a moment, then slowly opened again to regard her, full of sorrow.

“I’m sorry, Elphaba. I can’t.”

Elphaba blinked. She felt as though she had been slapped all over again.

“W-What? Why?”

“You’re… Look, Elphaba, we really do appreciate everything you’ve been trying to do. You’ve done so much for us. It’s not right, and it’s not fair, but… you’re too much of a liability, now, what with all these... these Witch-Hunters and the like. You can’t be here,” the woman answered, her voice low and gentle. “You’ve done enough, Elphaba. Go find somewhere to lie low.  We’ll take it from here.”

“No. No, no, you don’t understand. I have to—”

“Elphaba. Listen to me,” the woman said, her voice suddenly sharp and firm. “You need to go. It's not your fight anymore.”

“But I’ve given  everything to this fight,” Elphaba replied, pitch rising in time with her racing heartbeat. “I—I promised Dr. Dillamond, you can’t… I have so much more I have to do! I have so many mistakes I have to—”

“That’s just it, Elphaba. I know you’re trying your best, but at this point you’re doing more harm than good. In the beginning, the papers were with us most the time. But now? Now, they're all riding the wave of witch hysteria. We gotta think of a new plan of action if we want to make any progress, and... well, you're just not a part of it anymore.”

Elphaba froze, her heart skipping a sickening beat before it lurched back into motion.

“I’m sorry. You need to leave, before you draw all the authorities in the Emerald City right down around our ears. I wish you the best, I really do. Sorry it has to be this way.”

With a note of terrible finality, the grate slid back closed, shutting Elphaba off from the only allies she had thought she had left. She stared at the door for a long moment, then pounded her fist against it in desperate fury.

“You can’t do this!”

There was no response. From within, she could hear the usual sounds of chatter slowly picking up again as everyone collectively decided to ignore her. She closed her eyes, trying to catch her breath as she felt the world slowly begin to spin around her. How many times had she been betrayed? How much more could her heart take? She had always tried to do the right thing, constantly fought for what she felt was good and just—and this was how the world repaid her.

People on the street were beginning to take notice of her. She couldn’t stay. But where was she supposed to go now? Her family was dead, her allies had turned her away, her best friend now worked for the enemy—she had nowhere to turn. With a wry, twisting smile like a feral animal in pain, she turned away from the door and pulled her shawls tighter around herself, doing all she could to hide her face from the world.

If they wanted her to be the Wicked Witch, so be it. She was, after all, the most dangerous kind of woman, now: one with absolutely nothing to be lost. Beneath her heavy cloth covering, she laughed—but the sound was wretched and joyless, drawn up out of a hollow heart. She would find solace where all witches did: in the wilderness, far away from the designs of men and Wizards alike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back on Wednesdays!
> 
> I really wish the play had covered more of Elphaba's time fighting against the Wizard. You see the initial point of rebellion in "Defying Gravity," and then there's this huge time skip. What was she doing? Surely she wasn't fighting alone out there. One person does not a revolution make, after all. But then, who would blame them for abandoning her when the heat got a little too heavy?
> 
> Oh, Elphaba. You're always so rash and headstrong, consequences be damned.
> 
> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed reading. I love all of your comments and kudos, and, as always, I appreciate any constructive feedback you may have! Take care, and stay safe out there.


	11. No Good Deed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Elphaba continues to fight on her own, as best she can--but desperation leads to sloppiness, and sloppiness leads to mistakes. She flees from the war, licking her wounds, only to have the world rub salt in them once more. If everything she does is going to be punished, no matter how hard she tries to do the right thing, then why not abandon the 'right thing' altogether? Why not just take the fight directly to the source, consequences be damned?

She could not have said how long she tried to fight on her own. Along the way, she’d gotten herself into a fair number of scraps—though, usually, just showing her green face and letting out a long, horrible cackle was enough to chase most of the idiots away. The bolder ones she shook her broom at, spitting nonsense words at them in menacing tones, and they, too, ended up on the run before she could even finish her ‘spell’ for them. The Animals she saved usually were just as frightened of her as the people that were hurting them in the first place, but some of them still shared food and resources with her before she took off again, always just one step ahead of the ever-growing ranks of Witch Hunters.

They always marched in groups, their dark uniforms serving to accent the gleaming metal of their weapons. Each new time she was faced with them, it seemed that their arsenal continued to expand. Pistols and sidearms became rifles, while daggers were gradually replaced by sabers, spears, and halberds. Armor sprouted from their uniforms like the carapace of some shimmering insect, protecting first the head and breast and then spreading to cover their joints. 

She didn't know why they needed the protection; she always ran from them, never once engaging with their kind. She may have been headstrong and angry, but she wasn't stupid.

Still, the more she helped, the more things seemed to get worse for everyone. Security was tightened in places that had once been notoriously lax; Animals were kept separated at all times to prevent rebellions; sympathizers were publicly scorned and shamed, often thrown into the stocks for the rabble to attack. And the more she showed her green face in public, the wilder the accusations grew—and the more the Animals began to resent her for it. When she cried out for them to rise up, to throw off their chains and fight with her against their oppressors, they drowned out her words with bestial voices of their own. Some roared, some howled, some whinnied and thrashed themselves against the wooden stalls that held them--but it was always the same. No one wanted her help. Most of them actively refused it, choosing to sacrifice their language, their freedom, their potential, in the face of an enemy whose power seemed to grow more terrible with each passing day.

It was after her latest rescue operation that Elphaba finally decided to lay low for a while . She had opened the cages for a pack of Dogs that still half-remembered how to speak, though the unscrupulous people that held them used them only for hunting down other Animals that had escaped. One of them, still young, rushed up to her, tail wagging. The little thing had stood up, resting her forepaws on Elphaba's stomach, and yapped a series of gruff-sounding thank-yous, over and over again, even as the others growled at her to be silent.

Elphaba tried to shush her, tried to get her to run with the others into the underbrush where they could scatter and seek safety on their own--but in vain. The door flew open, and a man with a rifle stepped forward into the dark with a shout. There was a flash--a horrible noise like the sound of thunder--and the little Dog yelped.

The shot had gone wide, but only because Elphaba had pushed her out of the way. The bullet had grazed Elphaba's shoulder instead, spraying her blood on the earth as the Dog scattered with the others. She turned to face the man, but the alarm had been raised. Bells rang from every window, and she could see the light of torches and lanterns as people began to pour out of the nearby buildings to help the Dog-keeper and alert the authorities.

She stood defiant as the man raised his rifle again, even as pain sizzled down her shoulder to the tips of her fingers. She had to buy enough time for the Dogs to get away. Just as she went to open her mouth to speak the first words of her spell, however, she cried out in pain as sharp teeth clamped down around her wrist. One of the Dogs, grizzled and scarred, had not run out to the underbrush with the others. Instead, he had run a full circle around the building and come to hold her down for his master.

"If I help him kill you," he snarled, releasing his grip on her and letting out a fierce bark as the man reloaded his gun, "master will give me food. He will treat me well."

He lunged for her again, and she lashed out with a surge of raw power that knocked him back--right into the path of the gun as it fired once more. The man with the gun cried out, whether for the Dog or the wasted bullet, she couldn't say. Elphaba turned and ran, just as she heard the all-too-familiar sounds of the Witch Hunters marching toward the building, their metal accouterments jingling faintly through the dark. 

She ran for what felt like days on end, traveling mostly under the cover of night and sleeping wherever she could find shelter for a few hours during the day. Going back to the barn in Munchkinland would have been suicide, and to return to the Emerald City even moreso. But she remembered--distantly and somewhat deliriously--that FIyero had once mentioned an old tower in the Vinkus that his family technically owned, though no one really lived there or ever checked in on the place. The conversation felt like it had happened to another person, in another lifetime. It was surreal to think that there was a place in this world where young men and women could sit happily and idly in large common rooms, chatting about nonsense and laughing about their family histories.

Still, it was the best lead she had. So, she turned her steps westward. Huge trees fell away, leaving her to wander in open, rolling plains that then gave way to rocky outcroppings in their turn. Days later, she found the tower, and felt a strange kinship with the building that seemed to be barely able to support itself under its own weight.

She crept carefully inside, curled up in the dark on the dusty floor, and wept herself to sleep.

Over the next week or so, she managed to set herself up a decent little witch’s lair. She had clean water from a well she had managed to get clear again with a little help from her magic, and enough supplies from infrequent flying raids to last her a good week or two before she’d have to leave again. 

She didn't relish the idea of going back to the fight, now. People were getting hurt. Animals were being killed, all because of her little revolution. Her heart warred with her mind, day and night, in endless, exhausting arguments. She had to do something to right the injustice in Oz, to help innocent animals and find better ways to support the people who were struggling. She had to avenge Dr. Dillamond, to show him that his lessons had not been in vain--and that he had not and would not be forgotten. 

E very time she fought, things only seemed to get worse. But if someone stood by when evil things were happening, didn't it make them just as evil? What was the most ethical choice?

She couldn't say. It all just made her head hurt.

Instead, she decided to ignore the question altogether, choosing to dive deeper into the Grimmerie and uncover the many secrets it held within. Most of the spells within its pages were volatile and strange; if you pronounced them just wrong, or didn’t hold firm enough in your intent, they could backfire in many spectacular ways—like sprouting wings on a helpless Monkey by misunderstanding a spell that was presumably for levitation. Despite the danger, however, many of the spells were incredibly useful, if sometimes overly complicated. There were types of alchemy, in which she could substitute one material for another with a large enough energetic sacrifice; there were evocations that would allow her to summon all sorts of strange and powerful forces into the waking world; there were conjurations that would enable the creation or summoning of various types of spirits… the prospects were enticing, and seemed to never end.

The most useful of them at that very moment, however, was the section on what the author had entitled ‘divination and scrying.’ With the help of a crystal ball, she would be able to view anyone anywhere across the entirety of Oz as if she were there with them in that very moment. The only problem, of course, was acquiring a crystal ball. They weren’t exactly in high demand , and she wasn’t exactly welcome at any of the high-end shops that may have carried them—not that she had the money for one .

That’s what magic was for. Some of the spells were alchemy-based, after all. She flipped through the Grimmerie, marking pages here and there with spells that seemed appropriate, and then headed  outside for a brief moment in the heat of the day to gather a few handfuls of the red desert sand that surrounded her high tower. She knew that sand turned to glass when heated, regardless of magical talent, but the magic would have to supply the flame and keep the glass properly shaped without proper tools. It took some finagling and a lot of quickly dismissed half-completed spells to get it right, but eventually Elphaba had herself a serviceable glass orb with only a few minor burns and nothing currently on fire that shouldn’t have been. All in all, she could happily call that a success.

“Well,” she said to herself in her little workspace, dusting off her hands as she inspected the large orb. “Whoever said old witches couldn’t learn new tricks?”

She laughed at her own joke, then looked around the room as if someone else would join in.

No one did. Obviously.  There was no one else around for miles .

“Right,” she muttered, shaking her head. Perhaps she was going the tiniest bit mad . “Well. Let’s get this thing working, shall we?”

She opened up the Grimmerie, letting her fingers instinctively flip through the pages until they finally landed on the spell that she wanted. She double-checked the meaning, the words becoming clearer the longer she focused on them, and then carefully set the orb into the cup she was using as a stand.

The orb gleamed in the dim light of her workspace, and she let her gaze sink into it. For a moment, there was a heavy sort of silence, charged with power that heralded the oncoming of magic. Then, she opened her mouth to let the words flow off her tongue in a slow, steady susurrus as she circled her hands over the orb, guiding the power into its very core.

It only took a few minutes; as she finished the last word of the spell, spitting it like a crack of thunder, the orb seemed to sizzle and flicker before an image slowly floated up inside of it.  It was Elphaba herself, staring down at the orb, which showed Elphaba staring into the orb which showed Elphaba staring into the—

She closed her eyes, feeling suddenly nauseated by the infinite image.

“No, no, no—don’t show me me, you stupid thing. I already know what I’m doing,” she said, then paused. “Well. I know what I’m doing right now, not in a sort of… general sense, I suppose. Can't exactly help with that, though, can you?”

But what  did she want to see?

“How is the world getting on without me, huh?”

She opened her eyes, and the orb shimmered before its image slowly shifted to a steady montage of the world of Oz, just as she’d left it, only worse. Panic, anger, fear, mistrust; Animals and people were coming into violent, deadly conflict with one another. The Animal Liberation Front was facing mass arrests, people screaming to anyone nearby what their names were as heavy irons were clamped around their wrists.  Flying Monkeys scattered hither and yon, rejected by other Animals for their strange appearance and shooed away by superstitious people who feared them as agents of the Enemy. The Witch Hunters hunted them, too, only with nets and tools of capture rather than rifles.  The Wizard had cracked down on every front, and the people seemed just as miserable as the Animals just about everywhere—except for the Emerald City.

When the orb’s image went there, she felt bile rise in her throat when she saw the emerald elite in their finest attire attending some sort of dance in the courtyard of the Wizard’s palace where the Witch Hunters had first been introduced. They laughed and drank and ate while the people in the more modest districts starved and suffered and scowled at one another. And there, on the makeshift podium, stood Glinda the Good, smiling her plastic smile and making small talk with a group of men who were clearly each trying to impress her in some way or another. Beside her and a few paces behind her, stood Fiyero, Captain of the Guards, looking sullen and irritable as he flashed sharp glances toward the men who got a little too close to the precious golden Idol of Oz.

She stilled the image, letting it focus on the party as anger seethed up inside her. After a little tweaking, she managed to get sound as well as sight—though the sound came as though from a great distance, strangely echoed and muffled at the same time.

“…think we finally got that Witch on the run,” one of the men next to Glinda said, letting out a deep chortle. “And not a moment too soon, either. She was costing me a pretty penny, she was.”

“Absolutely dreadful,” another man chimed in, bringing a hand up to stroke his waxed mustache. “Though I daresay I do find the humor in it. Don’t you, Glinda, dear?”

“Hm?” Glinda said, blinking slowly as if waking up from a long dream. “What’s that?”

“I said, don’t you find it humorous, what’s happened with that Wicked Witch?”

She hesitated, smile faltering for a brief moment as she cast a confused glance at the others.

“ …I’m afraid I don’t understand what you mean. What’s so funny about it?”

“Well, that she fought so hard for those wretched beasts, and now they curse her name for making things worse for them,” the man said, letting out a light laugh that made Elphaba’s skin crawl. “They hate her, absolutely despise the woman and her nasty little allies. And why wouldn't they? After all, she did kill that Dog that refused to join her.”

The other men laughed, and Glinda’s smile grew tense. She tittered awkwardly, her hands clasped tightly together as she turned her eyes back to the dancers in front of her.

“I… Surely they don’t  all hate her,” she finally said, though her voice was soft, unsure.

“Oh, no, it’s quite categorical,” another man said, beaming a smile at her. “You’re so terribly  good , Miss Glinda, to think that anyone would still care for someone like  her .”

Elphaba dismissed the image with an angry wave of her hand which nearly knocked the orb from its seat. She paced back and forth, emotions surging within her as little odds and ends all over her workspace began to rattle.

“ You’re so good, Glinda ,” she snarled, imitating the man’s voice with disdain. “Yeah, she’s  wonderful , just like the Wizard! Hosting little parties and sharing in all their damned lies while people suffer and die in the streets!”

She swept all the contents of her one table off with a grand sweep of her arm, letting papers flutter and glass shatter on the floor as she let out a wretched scream that seemed to echo in her head. Then, all at once, her anger faded, leaving her breathing heavily in the deep, aching silence that pervaded the room.

They…  hated her. They blamed her for everything.

Her eyes slowly sank shut, and she drew in a shaking breath as she staggered over to sit on the threadbare cot she called a bed.

All she ever wanted to do was be  good . She had tried so hard, once she was older and wiser in the ways of the world, to fit in. To understand what she needed to do. To take care of Nessa, to obey her father despite his cruelty, to  be someone in a world that reviled her as an abomination. She wanted to learn to control her magic, to use it to  help people.

And she had. She had done so much. She had stood up to the Great and Powerful Oz—nothing more than a charlatan with fancy technology and parlor tricks on his side—and demanded justice. What had she gotten in return? Hatred . Not the disgust or apathy she’d received at home or at Shiz, but pure, unadulterated,  categorical hatred. 

“No good deed goes unpunished,” she whispered to herself, opening her eyes to look at the lines on her green palms. For a moment, she sat in the silence, then slowly drew her legs up to her chest and shifted to lean back against the cold, drafty stone wall.

Was she being honest? Had she been doing good deeds just for the sake of being good, because it was the right thing to do? Or did she just want someone to finally notice her after living for years in the shadow of her perfect—if slightly maimed—little sister?

“Is that all good deeds really are, when looked at with an ice-cold eye?” She asked no one in particular, casting her gaze back onto the orb as her heart thumped in slow, sore rhythm within her hollow chest. “Just… attention-seeking? Dreams of grandeur?”

How many times had she wanted to do good only to impress someone? To show them that she was  worth something? To prove to her imaginary conception of the Wizard that she was worthy of his time, of his attention, of his help in making her less of what she was and more of what she should be?

She scoffed a laugh at herself, bringing up a hand to rub at her breastbone.

“Maybe I did mean well—but look at what well-meant did. I’ve only made everything worse. It would have been so much better if I had never…” Her voice fell away, and she cleared her throat, focusing her attention back on the orb and letting it flicker back to life, showing her the chaos and confusion that continued to spread all throughout Oz. And in the back of her mind, she heard the dying yelp of the Dog she had freed--that she had killed, if only by accident, because she had just wanted to help.

“All right, enough. So be it, then,” she said, that horrible hollow feeling radiating from her chest throughout her body, until she felt almost as if she were floating on some endless black abyss. “Let all Oz be agreed: I’m wicked through and through. I promise you, no good deed will I ever attempt to do again— ever again.”

The orb re-centered its image on Glinda, staring with hollow, haunted eyes out at the dancers as they whirled and twirled  across the massive courtyard  like the gears of some great clock.

“You want to hate me? I’ll give you something to hate,” she whispered, lifting her hand and summoning the Grimmerie over to her, floating along on an invisible current of energy. She caught the book out of the air and hugged it to her chest like a child would embrace a stuffed toy.

No more running. No more hiding. No more small-time raids and little skirmishes. There was nothing she could do to escape the ire of those she called foes or those she had once considered friends, so why try? If she was going to go down in history as the greatest enemy Oz had ever known regardless of whether she died in obscurity or was captured and killed by the fanatic Witch Hunters, what did it matter? There were only two endings to this loathsome tale : justice, or death.

First things first, however: she would need help. And she had a feeling she knew precisely where to find it. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, Elphaba is still making rash decisions! And sometimes, well... we make our revolutions a little more about ourselves than the people we're trying to save. And when that happens, I suppose it's hard not to feel punished by the resentment they give you in return.
> 
> We'll see what happens, I suppose!
> 
> Hope you all enjoyed this one. I always appreciate all your comments and kudos, and of course constructive feedback is always welcome!


End file.
